On plot, and plot-like things

catsintheattic has been writing an intriguing series of entries on writing, and it's really made me think harder about my own writing process. One of the things that I've been really mulling over is what I call "plot and chores."

First of all, the terminology is my own rather poor word choice, and I'm certain that it's called something more accurate somewhere else, and it's probably explained better, too, but what I'm trying to do here is explain my own version of plotting in my own words. And keep in mind that this will not be a huge epiphany for anyone who regularly writes--it's more of an attempt to figure out how I write.

When I'm writing a long fic, I generally follow a pattern. I think about the fic quite a bit, daydream about it for days, sometimes months, and then I sit down and start writing down every plot point I can remember. I keep that up for a couple days, and then I type all of the plot points/scenes into a Word document and rearrange them until I have them in chronological order. I add a starting location and a date (and time, if necessary) to each section. I also add a few details that I don't want to forget, sometimes even a bit of dialogue. This is the plot. The outline looks like this:

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