Novel writing - things learned

Writing this novel is a learning process in many ways.

As I go along, I have to figure out how to handle various things in ways that enhance the story and don't slow things down - like dialogue, background and exposition.

But there are two things I stumbled over in the last few days.

One was character names. I came to a section that dealt with characters I hadn't written about in a couple of weeks, and I forgot their full names. And because I'm working on a computer, their names were buried in previous files. Yesterday, I went back and made a list.

I've also realized that it might be helpful to make a time line to help make sure the timing in the story is plausible. I'll do that today.

These are things I'm sure that any experienced novelist knows, but I'm learning as I go.

One final thing. The novel is being written on my home computer. That makes it hard to work anywhere else. And on hot days, I hesitate to have the computer on for any length of time (we don't have air conditioning). Maybe it's time to think of a laptop I can take with me (especially to air-conditioned places!).