Collaboration

Because inspiration so often accosts me in the shower, I keep a bath crayon handy for jotting down ideas. The other day, I sketched a variant of Michael Hague's six-part structure in blue crayon on the pink tile. I hoped the exercise would free my caged brain to start envisioning some of the missing scenes ahead of me in my third book.Shortly thereafter, my husband came to find me. "You left out a few plot points," he said.Needless to say, he'd filled them in for me.Since I know the photo's lousy, here's the complete text:

• Pre-life (my personal term for the scene before the meet scene)
• Set-up
• Commitment (my term for the scenes in which the hero and heroine are heading towards the point of no return)
• Complication
• Dark moment
• Climax/resolution
• Cigarette
• Marriage
• Division of labor talk
• Conversation about "Do these jeans make my ass look fat?"
• Minivan moment

I know the results of this particular brainstorming session are dubious, but I do highly recommend the bath-crayon-in-shower method of idea-generation.