So I’ve finished two more exercises, more or less to my satisfaction, which at this stage, I think, is the best I can hope for. It’s still brainstorming time. I developed a twist each for two of my characters, and cliffhangers for Renaut and Symmone. Next I move on to the Character tool, which should really help. After that I will start on my line-for-scene notecards, and my ideas should start to gel into story at that point. At least that’s the plan.

I’ve been fighting exhaustion every day around three o’clock, and it doesn’t lift until evening. Not sure what’s causing it or what to do about it; will try to get to bed earlier tonight and see if that helps.

I’ve spent the past few days working on Moonlit Hunt and it’s going well. Judged by the title, Holly Lisle’s Create-A-Plot Clinic sounds like a formulaic, fill-in-the-blanks method of story creation, but it’s actually the opposite. What it’s really about is learning how to ask the right questions, focusing your brainstorming so that you get the most out of your creative muse, and ways to wrestle—with chokeholds even—your muse and make it cough up the good ideas. There is very little structure explained here, Holly believing that too often writers who have stalled on a story think they need a better structure when in reality they need better ideas.

After playing with the Questions tool a bit, I’ve learned quite a few new things about my characters and story setting, many of them surprising. My story world is expanding in new directions, becoming richer and more complex, darker and more dangerous. (All this just by asking the right questions and writing my answers down.) I’m going to start work on the Twists tool tonight, if I can just shake off this exhaustion I’ve been fighting with all day. It’s making my thinking foggy and especially for writing that’s no good at all.

I have a whole week off from work, and I need to write as much as possible in that time. I have tons of things that have been neglected since I started work (and especially through the week of the 4th of July), including friends and family, but for now, the writing takes priority because what I’ve discovered by having a regular job is that I need to make money writing books. I must. No question. It’s like, required. Not only because I’m not cut out for a regular job, but because my boss and I have mutually come to the conclusions that my nervous little self can only handle so many hours a week, and that means less pay.

I’m going to work as hard as I can on Moonlit Hunt this week, going through Holly Lisle’s Create-A-Plot Clinic to see how far I can get with it. The little bit I’ve experimented with her exercises has been very productive, and I’m looking forward to more. Moonlit Hunt (not sure how much I’ve talked about it before) is a historical fantasy, set in 12th or 13th century Northern France, and I’m shooting for 100,000 words or so.

Will keep you all updated.