This has been a hard week in The World Of Courtney’s Noveling Shenanigans.

I’m going to spare you the details. I’ve been writing about zombies, so the details are gory. And I know some of my darlingest inklings don’t care to read about pus, blood, and guts. So all you need to know is that I’ve had a fairly miserable writing week. Actually, as a certain fantasy heroine would say, I’ve had a miserable writing tenday.

But. Friday and Saturday, I did something that I knew I needed to do and that a conversation with the writing group reinforced to me that I needed to do.

I took two days and finished writing my long synopsis.

And that, writerly friends and neighbors, has pretty much solved my penning problems. You see, since I hadn’t fleshed out my synopsis yet, I kept running into spots where I didn’t fully know what was supposed to happen next. I sort of knew, but it was the kind of knowing you have when you’re at a family reunion, and across the buffet table of mashed potatoes and tuna casserole, you meet a third cousin six times removed whom your mom once told you about when you were a teenager asking about skeletons in the family closet.

Okay, so the thing with my story wasn’t exactly like that, but it made a good visual, didn’t it?

Anyway. My writing problem has been that the story images in my head have been way too fuzzy. When I sat down and made myself finish the long synopsis, I sharpened those images so that I’d know exactly which scenes needed to happen in each chapter. And after I finished up that chore, I allowed myself to get back to the story.

Wonder of wonders, my Monday was a 4,272-word day. I wrote a paragraph — I knew which dialogue had to follow. I crafted a conversation — I knew how it led into the next action sequence. I wrapped up a scene — I had no question as to which scene needed to come next. All day Monday, I danced through my story, and the movements were easy because I’d rehearsed them all weekend long.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I’ve already got family in town. My several-day lead is going to be non-existent 24 hours from now. But the good news is that if not for finishing that synopsis, I would be four days behind by tomorrow instead of right on target.

As of this moment, my word count is 41,076. That leaves 8,924 words until I win this thing. It’s gonna happen, and it’s gonna happen because I fell flat on my face over and over again rehearsing. When it comes time to take the stage for real, I’m gonna shine.

(Aaron has talked about this prewriting stuff — this week, he’s talked about it. Go read, why don’tcha? 😉 )