Tag: outlines

OMG Outlines

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On September 4, 2012

In Big Ideas, Just Keep Writing, Organizing, Planning for the Future, Things That Are Awesome

My brain apathy wasn’t lending itself to making words that fit nicely together tonight, so I decided to bang out some point-form notes on everything I wanted to have happen before writing THE END (or TO BE CONTINUED I guess, technically).

What a fantastic fucking idea that was. It’s, like, all right there. In order. And even while I was writing it out, some parts that were just vague notions – “they’ll find this thing, somewhere, somehow” turned into well-thought-out, logical scenes. There are layers. There is conflict that I hadn’t even considered. And while it’s too late tonight to get started on any new words, tomorrow when I sit down I can look at my little outline and say “BAM here’s what you’re going to write about tonight,” instead of twiddling my thumbs for twenty minutes wondering how things should progress.

And I am so excited about this. I do love the spontaneity of leaving some things to figure out as I go, but having a basic beginning-to-end map (in this case, a halfway-through-chapter-17-to-end map) to refer to is solid gold for my overfilled mind. So thank you, everyone ever who said outlining is important. Also, thank you everyone ever who said outlining isn’t important because you gave me the confidence to write 17 1/2 chapters without one and that went just fine too.

Tomorrow my fingers are going to be nimble and my brain is going to be sharp and I’m going to tackle the first of my 11 bullet points. November isn’t that far off but now I feel like I know how to get there.

It’s A Start

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On June 18, 2012

In Distractions, Learning, Organizing

In a tiny, tiny first step towards some sort of future organization, I made a doc called “Things for Later” that I put a couple of minor ideas I didn’t want to forget – snippets of dialogue, actually – that I hope will grow to be a more comprehensive list of plot points for this series. I’m not sure how to organize it, and I may not even try, just write them down as they come to me with some sort of note at the beginning indicating where it might fall in the timeline.

It’s kind of a big deal for me, she-who-does-not-outline. And after my tremendous efforts yesterday, it’s a good way for me to take a bit of a break from the book without being entirely unproductive. I think I’ve got the next week’s worth of writing set up nicely in my head anyway, so might as well focus on something different tonight.

***

Or I could just play Bejeweled all night instead. Whatever.

This Is What I Was Afraid Of

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On June 14, 2012

In Just Keep Writing, My Failings As A Proper Novelist, Writer's Low

I should’ve made an outline. I should’ve used those cue cards I bought months ago to write my stray thoughts for scenes or characters on. I should’ve done SOMETHING to keep track of all the many threads of this story straight since it’s all jumbled out of order in my head.

I’m about to start chapter 9. Yay, right? Chapter 8 ended on a nice little cliffhanger, ensuring the reader will turn the page, only I don’t remember what happens next. See, these two characters, they’re supposed to meet again, and something REALLY IMPORTANT was supposed to be revealed here. And for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. I had this tight little scene plotted out weeks ago, and now where it once resided in my brain, there’s only this:

Goddammit, I say. Now I feel like I’m entering this scene without a plan for it, and it’s just going to be 1,500 words of rambling pointlessness. I’m just going to start writing anyway and hope that one of two things happens: a) I remember what my original thought was and proceed with that; b) I come up with something even more awesome.

Argh.

And yet I’m willing to bet that even after this, I still won’t write out that outline or fill out those cue cards, because I’m always telling myself I’m too busy with the actual writing to take time to do the planning. I need to learn a lesson the hard way at least three times before I’ll actually change my habits.

*headdesk*

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