This post by Writer’s Digest came at just the right time for me. I have recently been staring at my computer screen revising my story and it has been slow going to say the very least. I’m not a very enthusiastic reviser. In fact, I keep finding other things to do with my valuable writing time. Some fun (catching up with the new season of Girls) and some bordering on tragic (cleaning my bathroom).
Just a few weeks ago I was telling my husband that I had the urge to storyboard my manuscript as a way to revise. In college I had studied film and television and we often used storyboards for creating our projects. While I thought it was a decent idea, it also seemed so daunting to storyboard the entire story. I’m not a great artist but even sketching out rough stick figures would take forever.
My husband then sent me an article about reverse outlining, which is outlining after you write your story. Perfect, I thought, except part of me still wanted to storyboard. Well in this article, the author uses storyboarding BUT only uses about 20 squares or enough to cover each chapter. They only put the most pivotal moment of each chapter on the storyboard. Well, duh! I could do that!
Sometimes you just need somebody else’s perspective to help fix your own dilemmas. So, are you a plotter or a pantser? I usual start as a pantser and then plot as I go along.
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/jan-29
Megan Taraszkiewicz 
I think I am much like you; pantsing a story is how I get into it, but somewhere down the line I have to start plotting before it all goes to heck. I’m struggling to finish a novel revision as well, and I’ve had to put organizing my bedroom on hold for a week because it (the organizing my bedroom) is a larger project than I’d care to admit, and was seriously interfering with writing time!
I, too, am in the process of organizing everything in my house and you are right, it takes up a lot of time- time I could be focused on writing. I feel like that once I do get everything organized then I could have more time to write. I’d actually have to get organized though. *sigh* Something always has to suffer to get something else done. Good luck to you!
I definitely start in the planning mode, but I think the characters take over and do what they want. The plan is just the guide to keep me on track. Thanks for the link. 🙂
Thanks, Pete. I agree with you, the characters definitely take over but it is nice to have some sort of plan of where you are going.
Definitely. Without the plan I struggle. I don’t follow it to the letter, more a spirit guide 🙂