I'm at the point in my novel-writing class where we're learning to storyboard.  I decided to make my board huge and put it on the wall in my studio.  Can you see it's in a "W" shape?  The points of the W are marked with blue stickies.  The W helps you see what has to happen and when. If you want to, you can keep writing "islands" of your story in any order you want, but then later, you know how they all fit together because you have a sticky note for each scene in the right place on the W.

Making the storyboard really energized me. Once I saw that I was nearing the end of Act I, I zipped right through my 500 word quota.  I'm even going to do a little more, as I'm trapped in my house with the AV guy and trying to seem productive and official, rather than idle and superfluous.

Yes, a water stain drips down in between the fourth and fifth blue stickies, but we're ignoring that right now.  I already called about the roof repairs.  I also talked with the damn cable company for 45 minutes and exchanged DVR boxes.  There's only so much I can do in a day, and right now I've got to write the First Turning Point.  This is my number one priority.