This is Part 4 of 6 of my Everything Before Gia series. Click the link to learn more about my debut novel, or return to Part 3!

2024 was a big year for me. I knew it wasn't the right time to write a manuscript. But after extensive chapter development I still needed to offload my ideas somehow. So I wrote 33 chapter summaries using a template of my own design. They would make the project more approachable at a later date.

I wrote summaries in the morning before work.

I wrote summaries on the journey to work, which was an hour long.

I wrote them in public spaces before work started.

On my breaks in the tea room.

I wrote them in food courts.

I wrote them in bed.

I also wrote summaries on an aeroplane.

I wrote summaries in my hotel room in Thailand.

In the case of first-person chapters, which were more free-flowing, I returned to collage. These notes were sourced directly from my chapter book. I love these ones!

An example of a finished first-person summary.

Finishing these pages marked a huge leap in the progression of my novel, which I decided to call Everything Before Gia. The summaries weren't meant to be prescriptive; they simply preserved my ideas. They also made them accessible to other people for the first time!

Time stretched on before I could attempt another draft. In the meantime, I had other plans to keep Everything Before Gia alive. Not all my ideas were plot points. What material had I overlooked? I returned to my original scrapbooks to salvage the world-building I had left behind.

Click here to view part 5 of the Everything Before Gia novel series!