In keeping with the holiday season, let’s revisit Scrooge for a minute.

Can we all agree that he had his best AHA! moments in the middle of the night?

We’re no different from him—in this respect.

And just like him, we need to pay attention to the AHA! moments that come in the dark of night.

Here’s an idea that haunted me last night like The Ghost of Christmas Writing (that’s the fourth ghost, by the way, who just didn’t make the cut into the final revision of A Christmas Carol): Every story we work on can and will amble off into parts unknown unless we keep an eye on things.

It’s like herding kittens.

How do we keep an eye on things?

I figure we need to ask ourselves some questions right away.

“What am I working toward in this story?”

“What is the MC’s transformation?”

“Who is crucial to the ending?

“Is there a secret involved?”

“How do I want the reader to feel while reading this?”

“What is the point of this story?”

This isn’t about theme, character motivation, loglines, concepts or premises.

You don’t need to keep this list to a few hundred words or one or two sentences.

This is more personal to you, the writer.

This also isn’t an outline or a list of tasks to accomplish.

It’s a list of overall threads that you want to cover in your novel so that it all makes sense in the end.

A list like this will keep you and your story on track.

Write down as many threads or points that you have for your story and then make sure to remind readers of them at regular intervals.

Here are some of the threads that I need to keep track of to prevent my story from getting away from me.

1) I need to show my 12yo MC becoming braver despite setbacks.

2) She needs to come to a realization that she’s going to have to send her sister away again.

3) Her sister needs to pretend she’s afraid to move on despite never having been afraid of anything in her life.

4) Her sister needs to consistently show that she’s worried about MC and that’s why she can’t bring herself to move on.

5) A side character needs to have a growing role in the story because he’s critical to the ending.

6) There are rules to being a ghost.

7) I’m working with the idea of ‘If you love something, let it go…even though it won’t ever come back to you.’

I’ve written each of those threads on an index card that I put right next to my laptop so I can keep them in focus every time I sit down to write.

And because I like to skew these posts to nonwriters, too, I’ll add that we all need to occasionally check in with ourselves and ask, “What am I working toward?” so your life doesn’t amble and ramble away.

Put your goals somewhere you can’t help but see them so you can keep them at the forefront of your mind as you go about your day.

Writing a novel is cumbersome—so is living a meaningful life.

I hope this helps you.

Happy Chanukah to those of you who celebrate.

Enjoy the week.

~ Gail

(Tick tock)

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