A couple of days ago, while I was pulling out pieces of the NaNo novel and seeing how they might fit together, I attempted a plot outline. A simple big-picture sort of thing. I made several attempts at similar things throughout the month, with poor to moderate success.

All of a sudden, this time, the pieces fit together. I didn’t have any new pieces, I was just seeing what I had in a different way, and it worked. Surprise!

I am not, however, an outliner. I am an index card plotter. I like to lay out my cards, rearrange them, hide some, make new ones.

I am also a conservationist. I save a sheet of paper if it’s got a clean corner to write on. I don’t actually like using index cards; I’d rather go paperless. So today I began writing out my plot cards in Power Point.

Yeah, yeah. There is plotting software. I am also a minimalist, an extreme DIYer, a make-doer and do-withouter. I’m pretty excited about the Power Point approach to plotting! I’m sure I’m not the first to try it.

Now, let’s see if it works.