So I had a plan, which is to say that my characters had a plan. If you're going to pull off a jailbreak on a distant asteroid, you need a plan.

And I built in a few "accidents" to add "complications" to the plot. Tried to make sure the characters looked surprised when they happened.

And then to justify a certain plot twist I added another "accident" which sounded like a good idea at the time.

But that "accident" has ramifications which are now bouncing all over the storyline... silly me, I was worried about things sounding too pat and well planned out. I suppose I ought to be panicking, but it's feeling like this is the way it ought to be. I shouldn't be too well prepared when we get down to the wire.

That might not sound strange to other writers, but I'm normally a well prepared writer. Now that I'm using Scrivener I can actually see how much I write in the way of notes. Out of curiosity, I added up all the outlines, scene notes and world-building I've done so far -- first draft isn't done yet -- and the notes are running a little more than half the current word count.

Something to be said here about balancing plans with spontaneity, about giving your characters some rein and trusting them... stay tuned.