I've been reading a book about how to write a book. More specifically, how to write a scifi and/or fantasy book. I remember getting it about ten years ago and going over it, but not really doing any of the exercises it suggested. It wasn't that I thought the exercises weren't good, I was just lazy. But when I reread it this time, there was one that had stuck with me all of that time, and I had really wanted to do, but had never figured out the right approach for me.
The idea is to take a bunch of note cards (or ripped pieces of paper in my case) and on each one write out a scene of the book. Then when you're done, you can shuffle them around to see where they might work better or eliminate them all together. My problem was that I didn't know all of the scenes that were going to happen, and so when I came to a part that I wasn't sure about, I would stop and not continue with the cards.
The problem was, I was too focused on the little details. But what I needed to do is only write the scenes that I really knew had to be in there such as "Epic final battle" or "Scorching romance scene." Once you get the basic's down, it's much easier to fill in the gaps.
Plus it's fun to play with note cards. No? I'm just insane? Okay, I accept that.
