Less than 48 hours to Kickoff, and I've devoted surprisingly little time to soaking in my novel-to-be. The #1 Must for me, though, is to be sure I have character names in place. The What-Happens is far less crucial than Who-Does. ~~~~~ To be honest, I'm really not relying very much on planning. It seems like I didn't really rely on planning much last year either. I settled into the head of my heroine, the clock struck midnight, and I let her speak. And that's how it went on. And I suspect this is why I had such a problem developing Conflict, why I had such a hard time when I tried to tackle the revision. "Lily" felt and broke and melted and combusted and bled all through the story, but she rarely accomplished anything. She sped faster and faster toward demise, and that's what constituted the bulk of the story. ~~~~~ I don't kick myself for my method, though, because it's gotten me to 50k at least 2-out-of-3 times. Naturally, it's not the way I'd want to approach a novel fit for publishing, but this isn't Random House anyway.