Well, I didn’t write a blog post to pre-post on Monday night for Tuesday because I thought I’d wait and report my word count for Tuesday in the morning (since I usually do the bulk of my day’s writing after I turn off the internet-connected computer and go sit in the bed).

I spent most of the afternoon Monday “storyboarding” Ransome’s Crossing. I’d started this in PowerPoint, where I can color the background by POV and include images of the characters and the settings. But after getting a couple of chapters done, it wasn’t as useful as I really wanted it to be—I wanted to be able to see everything at a glance, but in PPT, once I get more than about 12 slides done (and I do one per scene), I have to start scrolling down. So I wanted something simpler, more at-a-glance. So, I pulled out my handy-dandy 4×4 lined Post-its and, using five different colors, went through the existing chapters and wrote out a summary of each scene. Next, I wrote notes for several scenes I’ve thought of in recent weeks as I’ve worked on the manuscript. I then pulled up my original, full-length synopsis (the one I used as part of the proposal that sold the series) and made scene notes for those scenes as well.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Dark pink = Charlotte’s POV
Green = Ned’s POV
Yellow = Julia’s POV
Blue = William’s POV
Bright Orange = ??? POV and/or research

But by the time Monday night rolled around, I wasn’t feeling well—my stomach hurt and I was just worn out, so I ended up falling asleep before I could get anything written. I figured I’d be able to write Tuesday. But then when I got up, I had a voicemail waiting for me offering me a rush editing job (at time-and-a-half!) if I could get it done and back to them before Thursday. Since the one project I still have at home to do isn’t due until next Monday, I decided to take it. So I ended up spending the day Tuesday working on that.

At 6:30, I met up with three of the sales/marketing executives from Harvest House for supper. Shane and I discovered we’re both “recovering Southern Baptists” and spent the next three and a half hours shocking Barb and John with stories about growing up in the Southern Baptist culture (Shane actually has it worse than I do—he’s originally from Texas). So it was after 10 p.m. when I got home.

Once I got home, I ended up spending another hour inputting the edits so that I could send the .pdf of the editing project back tonight so that the editor can look at it tomorrow and make sure the way I did it (she sent me a scanned copy of the file, I copied and pasted the page images into PowerPoint and marked it up using the drawing and text-box tools, then converted it back to a .pdf document) comes out legibly on her end. All in all, it was really a good day’s work.

But now, I’m even more behind in my writing. And I really only have two working days left this week—because Friday is blocked off for the Southern Festival of Books (see my Appearances page) and Saturday is my local writing group meeting, a book signing (Colleen Coble and Tamera Alexander at the Cool Springs LifeWay from 11 to 1), then a modeling gig for my favorite clothing store, C.J. Banks, at 3 p.m., and then the LSU–Florida football game that evening (GEAUX TIGERS!). Which means I’ve got to get 5,000 to 6,000 words written in the next day or so just to catch up, as well as getting a gift book about tea parties (the kind with actual tea) pulled together before Monday.

Guess I’d better get off this computer, go write, and then sleep fast so that I can be up and at ’em early Wednesday.