imagineblog

This week’s meeting with the Asimovs brought up an interesting point. If I’m not careful, I could plan this book to death without actually getting around to writing it. With that said, and the other Dead Asimovs glaring at me holding their menacing nerf bats, I think I’d better lay out some milestones for what I plan to accomplish here. (Warning: Personal productivity theory and writing may intersect. Wear adequate head protection.)

I’ve been “given"; two weeks to finish planning the book, which I think is absurdly optimistic. Was Patton given two weeks to plan Italy? No! Was Tommy Franks given two weeks to plan Iraq? Actually, quite possibly. But anyway, two weeks ain’t a lot of time if you have a full time job, a part time job, a nagging addiction to sleep and angry cats. But two weeks to do what, exactly? I don’t plan on writing the whole book backwards, and I don’t plan on even having a really detailed outline. While I can’t seem to pull off King’s “fossil” trick, I don’t want Revelation to be a paint-by-numbers affair like the original BHH. So what I need, really, is a skeleton outline, a simple list of the big plot points to hit along the way, the important character moments, the basic structure of the story without the details. The details are what makes actually writing the damn thing fun.

Let me esplain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. — Inigo Montoya

So here’s the plan. Over the next two weeks, I’m going to work backwards and assemble the skeleton of Revelation bone by bone. Your job is to make sure that I don’t miss anything big, like a pelvis or ribcage. That the outline makes sense in general terms and there are no “Far Side” style “and then a miracle occurs” moments business papers. As I get the outline working, I’ll post it as a bulleted list at the top of each post. And just to be completely inconsistent right from the start, I’ll start it at the end of this post.

Susan posts her proof of immortal existence on the web, causing a public stir that starts small but snowballs as more media outlets pick up the story and verify it.

Daniel and Jack get recruited into a government organization to study the demonic threat.

So my next step is to figure out what happens before Susan posts her proof.