Okay, cool. Elizabeth is napping after having worked today, so I had time to finish up what I call my "Chapter Breakdowns" for my novel The All Nations Team. I've had to do this for all my novels so far, to keep up with the characters and plotlines, as well as the dates in the novel. For this novel, I wanted to keep it to three single-spaced pages.

This document is basically a condensed outline, with a bulleted sentence covering the events of each scene in a chapter, one bullet per scene. Most chapters have about three bullets. It's mostly plot, but there are some character development things in there as well. It works great for me when I'm revising, because I've got all my novel "facts" handy in on place.

You'd think I'd be able to remember all that I've written, as it all came from my brain, but I'm not that nimble. Now I feel all up-to-speed again on the storylines, and I have a really good idea of what to focus on in the rewrite.

Tomorrow I plan on getting up early and sitting down (after seeing Elizabeth off -- she has to work tomorrow as well!) and re-drafting the first chapter completely. I've had trouble with the concept of "re-drafting." This is starting over from scratch. No previous version to tighten up and revamp. I had a lot of problems with chapter one, especially the voice, so I'm going to just write it all again, giving my protagonist an attitude and some character (as opposed to the blah persona he has now).

This'll be a good stretch and challenge for me. A chance to push myself.

But I'm only re-drafting chapter one. I mean, I like a challenge as much as the next guy, but I'm not frickin' crazy. Later!