Three guesses as to what this post is going to be about.

ThImage by brody4 via FlickrI'm sincerely sorry that I can't shut up about this novel. It's just really coming together, and quite frankly, I'm overjoyed. Nothing has ever come together like this for me. Usually it starts as an idea and stays as an idea because I'm more than afraid to plan it out and actually DO it. Fear of screwing up? Oh yes. I should think so.

This time, however, I told myself that such a thing simply would not fly. I buckled down and actually started outlining the thing, and didn't make myself too scared to plan out the story from start all the way to finish.

The only problem is that now I'm terrified of actually writing it.

On a related matter, I decided to bump the age of my main character from fourteen down to thirteen. While she's supposed to seem young and naive for her age, I was writing my scenes and realized that she just might be a bit too young and naive to be fourteen.

Is she too immature to be thirteen?

Incredibly. But not so much that it makes it look like I such at characterization. I've just got to say that I'm glad I made the change before I actually started on the manuscript. Does anyone out there know how annoying it is to go back and change things about a character (such as name or age) and then go change all of the references made TO that thing you changed? And all of the plot points it influenced?

Ugh. That's another reason to make sure you've got it straight before you start writing. Believe me, the more sure you are about exactly what is going to happen and when, the easier the actual writing will be.