This Maybe Isn’t the Most Efficient Way to Write a Synopsis

or, I’m in Synopsis-Writing Hell. Liquor isn’t helping.

Write
May 11, 2015

Not to say that I didn’t try, though.

Vegan Bailey’s from Mind Body Green recipe

I finished my latest round of manuscript cuts a few days ahead of schedule. The next step was to rewrite my synopsis. This is how I made the best use of my time advantage:

1. Took a few days off from even looking at the damn thing. Fiddled with the NaNoWriMo draft instead. Went to see Avengers: Age of Ultron. Told myself I’ll start the synopsis on Sunday.

2. On Sunday morning thought to myself, “Gah. It’s Sunday already? I so do not want to work on the synopsis. Besides, Not That Kind of Girl is due at the library tomorrow. Spend the day reading that instead. I’ll start the synopsis on Monday.”

3. Monday I remembered I am also supposed to be planning my new website. Why start off a Monday doing something hard like a synopsis? I spent the morning looking at authors’ websites for ideas instead.

4. Tuesday I exported my manuscript outline from Scrivener to a .csv file and then to Excel so I can use it to rework the synopsis. Great start. Then I left early to take the car in for the oil change in case the carpool to the Claudia Rankine event in Santa Fe fell through. (It didn’t.)

5. Just wasn’t feeling the synopsis writing on Wednesday. I spent my morning hour looking at other author sites again.

6. I slept in on Thursday on account of getting to bed so late the night before after going to the Claudia Rankine event. No time to work on the synopsis even if I wanted to. I didn’t.

7. Friday. It hit me that a whole week had gone by. Panic fluttered in my stomach. I wrote down in my planner “I don’t even want to look at my f***ing synopsis.”

But I did it anyway. It was not quite as horrific as I thought it was going to be. It needs all kinds of work, though.

All kinds of work.

I’d rather watch the birds.