I finally broke down and bought a couple of things to help me fix the pacing problem in Cate 1.0. Everybody loves/hates Save the Cat, so I basically ignored it because it seems like it’s everything I’ve ever learned in my English major. And my English teacher courses. And, you know, from reading a lot, and watching a lot of movies.

So, obviously, as soon as I opened it and read a few chapters, I realized at least three stupid mistakes I was making in my book. I pulled up my plans on my phone while sitting in the car for the parent pick-up line and made several very specific notes.

It turns out I may be a semi-pantser on the first draft (I had a basic list of scenes laid out, but I didn’t refer back to them much, and I can definitely say that about halfway through, I had no idea where we were going). But I am very much a plotter for revision. I had already started creating a chart to rearrange my Vella episodes into chapters. This workbook is way better. Even if I can only use it while my seven-year-old is at school.

It may not be super helpful for people who are into spreadsheets, or Scrivener, or other electronic organizers, but I was getting a little frustrated with all the scrolling I’ve been doing in Google Docs, so it will be great to have all of my story details in one place that I can refer to separately from the screen where I’m working. I could just have easily have done this on my own in a notebook, but this thing has charts, and reminders, and very helpful publishing checklists at the end of each section, so I won’t have to pull up all of the random Facebook pages, newsletters, and free marketing courses I’ve bookmarked somewhere. Plus, there’s cursing.

Aside: Can we talk about what geniuses these authors are? These ladies created a 200+ page workbook that basically uses 11 unique pages in varying levels of repetition to create a three novel planner and can now have it printed and sold for $20. Genius.