Outlines: Another Side of the Die

Granted, outlines can be useful; I wouldn't outright say that outlines aren't useful.

And I certainly wouldn't say that whatever I have against them involves stifling my creativity.

But, I think there's a time and a place for everything under heaven. And at some point if you haven't set the thing down on paper, creating one is actually more of a procrastination tool than anything else.

That said, I've worked on my own stories both with and without it, and I think that needing one or not, and the format you use (as Mike Chen mentioned not too long ago, when talking about his story webs), depends on the narrative. For me, at least.

My first story was written the whole way through with a kind of non-traditional outline. The story is set in a specific time-frame, and I needed to keep that frame in mind. And so, I set a loose outline of that story up in a day planner. My chapters are less "chapters" and more like what happens each day for my three protagonists. The day-planner approach (I hesitate to call it an outline, but it is one. Kind of.) was really helpful for me in visualizing what was going on and the pacing of my story. But it hasn't worked in all cases, for example, my second story.

For my second story (a Nano-Novel), there was no physical outline. I thought about a day planner, but it didn't fit. I had a plan from the beginning for the over-reaching story arc and while the smaller stories with in it have been developing within that framework, there wasn't an outline set out for the first (or second, or third) of what I hope to be a series of three. I finished the story, ran through a first set of edits and then a second, marking in the text notes for what I wanted to see and when. I had a fairly good idea about the way the story flowed and the way it progressed. I've always been a bit of a patchwork writer anyway and I see the connections between pieces. It's all in my head and I'm good at visualizing where it goes and if it needs to be moved. The big picture.

It wasn't until the three of us sat down and set out a specific deadline for passing around a draft of one of our novels that someone even mentioned outlining, and while I did it to stay in tandem with both Genn and Jenny, I really felt that doing the outline was keeping me from doing what I needed to actually do on my actual story -- do something about all of those notes about "move this here," "eliminate this," or "bring this in here." The only thing the outline I completed has helped me to do is to see where I put the song lyric quotes I still am not convinced I need for most chapters. There are one or two chapters where the song quote is just too perfect to get rid of, which is why I'm still having a bit of a hink about keeping them or not. I broke up a few chapters into smaller pieces, but really, the reason I'd had them together as one before was thematic. I spent most of January working on something that the whole time I was convinced (and am still convinced) that at this point, I don't need. It was far too late for an outline on this story.

My third story, still being written, is also going right along without an outline. But, it's also a story line I've had in my head for a while, and while I've had a few fits on some specific scenes (some characters just don't want to be written out! What cheek!), it's still going right along without one. I know what I need to write next, even if it's hard. And I know what I need to do for the last chapter. I've written some of it already, thanks to another suggestion of Mike's, something I've been leery of letting myself do as it's part of my prior MO with my unfinished novels -- writing scenes out of order. I never used outlines back then, either. I don't think I'm creating an outline for this one. I feel pretty confident I know what's going on the whole story through.

My fourth story (another Nano-Novel), was actually finished before my third story, but it's the second for the series mentioned earlier. I'm still tottering on whether or not this edit is going to need an outline. If I do, should I go with an option -- like with my first novel -- that isn't conventional. The problems with the story were ones I'd realized before I'd finished, much like the earlier Nano-Novel: this one ends abruptly, there stuff missing -- like tension and a plot line. I don't want this to be filler between the first and third stories, so I have to find some way of making this story stand up on it's own, and once I've finished with this round of edits on the second story (confused yet?), I need to roll up my sleeves and figure out some way to breathe life into the inert monster that is this second-of-three-stories. Even so, not having read it over once yet, I'm fairly confident I know what's wrong and what I need to do where. No outline, but an idea of where things go in my head.

A lot of times, I think what really is my bug-a-boo about outlines is that I'm not entirely a lineal thinker. I can keep it all straight in my head, but if I were to create something to show the whole network of plot bits, I'd have to have the software used to plot epidemics (a whole web of connections) or I'd have to create an "idea mobile, with strings connecting each floating piece, or use an erector set with little tags on it for each point at my desk (hmmm... I like this idea. I haven't done that in a while.... where is that erector set...?) -- and that takes up a lot of physical space.

So, I'm still out on whether or not I think outlines are useful or just a procrastination tool. I haven't finished a story because I've had an outline. I've finished a story because I gave myself goals and deadlines and put my butt in the chair and got to work. That's just how I roll....

Although, I could have probably used an outline for this blog post.... ;)

What NANO has Reminded Me: Early Morning Writing Joy

In many ways, participating in NANOWRIMO teaches me things about writing and about myself. Many of those lessons are reminders. The biggest thing I've been reminded of lately is of my morning creative period.

Before joining the huddled masses in the real world, I was always an early riser. As Ginny and Jenny can both attest, for much of my time in college I was up before my roommates finishing papers and projects I hadn't finished the night before. Ten PM was my limit of lateness for work, but during the morning hours -- from six to eight (in some cases, nine, if I didn't have a class) -- I was gold. I liked working in the morning. My brain liked the morning. And I was more than willing to run with it.

Fast forward eight years. Work life and home life being what it is, my sleep clock shifted. My husband (love him dearly) has always been a night owl. He works best in the late hours and has no problems sleeping in until eleven on the weekends if there is no alarm. While I've never really been able to sleep that late, I might get up when the cat wanted a feeding, crawl back into bed and sleep until the alarm or until about nine AM without it. But I'm not going to bed until eleven PM - midnight. And, I've been getting into the habit of blaming work as much as my husband -- in getting home and needing to get so much done before bed because I was at work all day, but I'm rediscovering early mornings this NANO, thanks to the time change.

I'm rediscovering my early creative period. For the last week, I've been up every day by seven at the latest (the old eight). I pour myself a cup of tea, curl up with the cat (the only time he "cuddles"), and I get working. By the time the alarm goes off (around eight), I've got six-hundred words or so banged out. I'm awake and feeling good starting my workday. Perhaps it's a little early to say, but I think this is something I want to keep going into the rest of my writing year. Perhaps not upwards of two-thousand words a day -- although NANO has proved to me I can do it (and makes me feel more guilty about my dry spells), but maybe this is how I could keep that up post-NANO.

I do have other revelations that have come to me this and prior NANOs, not the least of which is that I'm capable of doing two-thousand words a day, but we'll save those for another post on another day.

In the meantime, I'm going to get back to my NANOing. For those who might want to track my progress, too, the NANO log-on I'm updating is MiaBrightborn.

13894 and counting!

Keeping My Head Above Water -- Or: Surviving the Doldrums

I have reached a point in my work right now that I'm just going to call the doldrums. It's an odd place: I'd been going along at a fine clip for a while and then, suddenly, it's like my sails deflated. My speed has dropped from 60 to what comparatively feels like almost zero. It's not that I don't have idea of where I'm going or even great scenes plotted out in my head. It's that I've just lost the energy. Creatively speaking.

Ginny had to remind me that these periods have to happen. That you have to slow down or burn out. And that you have to refresh your creative self. But, after nearly a year of nearly consistent production and very few fallow periods, it has been somewhat frightening. I keep asking myself if I've lost it. If some how I have completely burned out.

But, she's right. Everyone needs to take a little breather. And it's not like I've stopped altogether.

But, I'm really not sure: how can I work on refreshing my creative winds? Does anyone have any suggestions, because, I'm certainly open to them.

Jumping in With Both Feet - A Writing and Editing Lifestyle

One of the things I've found in the last year and a half of working on my stories is that I can't just dip a toe in. It's all or nothing. And I can only have one major project running at a time.

The reason is that a story is a lot like a mud puddle. You have to jump in with both feet to see how deep the mud is. You have to get absolutely coated in it. And that's how you know how much of a story you have, when you've surrounded yourself in your world building, you've got your mounds of research, your plotlines and all. But, if you're jumping in with both feet into the one mud puddle, you are also only testing the mud in one place at one time. You can't physically be two places at once. And figuring out that I can't be in two metaphysical places at once has certainly taken a lot of learning.

I had, up until last year, had a few stories going all at once. It divided my time and allowed me an escape hatch if one story seemed to be having trouble. And that's great, except I wasn't finishing things. Some things would go on the side burner permanently. Others, I'd probably get a few paragraphs in at a time -- wonderfully written paragraphs, but that's all they were.

You're not really getting muddy if you have a toe here, a toe there, and fingers in two other different puddles.

So, now, I have one story that I'm writing at a time. One puddle, ankle-to-neck deep. (At least, I keep hoping I won't find that I'm in over my head... ::winks::)

But what does this mean for editing? As I've said in my profile, I'm writing one story and editing two others. And that's a lot of mud to sling.

Ginny and I were talking about the best way to approach edits and I told her, I still believe it's about jumping in with both feet. There really is no best angle to get into it from, and it's hard to see just what kind of mess you have until you're knee deep in it again: then, you'll be able to see how much needs to be changed.

Even though I'm standing knee deep in my new story, and am still working towards the goals of my new story, I'm still coated -- metaphorically-speaking -- in the mud of my last two projects. And they've had time to soak in. But, I still make sure that I work on only one of those story edits at a time.

So, for each story, I jumped in. I did a read through. I made those changes I knew I needed off the bat. I marked places that I was unsure about, then I sent it out and set it aside and let it percolate. Each one in their own turn.

They're not done, of course, and won't be until they're published, but I have those pockets of mud mapped. They're on my radar. I'm not losing them, and while more rain refreshes them, they're still mine. I've left my mark on them and they've left their mark on me.

And distance, whether it had just been put aside after the first edit or sent out to friends to read and respond to my own comments, really has helped to create some clarity in things that had been, at the time, as clear as mud.

But you can't know until you jump in.

At least, that's my take on it.

Going it (NOT) Alone

I've always had mad visions of writing alone in a garret apartment. Sipping a cup of tea, as I type on my computer or revise my latest masterpiece. The solitariness of this never seemed to bother me, in fact it sort of enthralled me. That is, until I had to put all this into practice.

See, my quiet desk, my solitude, my tea all rather lost their lustre when I realized the daunting task I was undertaking (alone). I'd written loads before I left University. Mostly literary short stories and poetry-- but I'd never written a novel before. So, for about four years I faffed about starting and half finishing at least as many novels or projects.

It wasn't until 2008 that I really began to understand why I was failing constantly. See, I'd learned a lot about the craft of writing (and yet-- there's still so much to learn!) but I hadn't learned how to structure my time. I didn't have a writing habit. I didn't understand what that was, really. When I had an idea I puzzled it over in my head, I jotted some notes, and then in two sittings I wrote out the whole mess. But writing a novel, that took time. That took some sort of game plan. That overwhelmed me.

So, I asked my friends how they got through the process of writing a novel. Jenny suggested her patented 2500 words a week method. Essentially, the idea is to set a small goal, say 2500 words a week, and then consistently hit this goal. The idea is that as you keep hitting your goals and as you go along you build a novel out of small targets and then increase these targets. Towards the end of my novel I was averaging 10,000 words a week. So, I gave this a whirl last April and was shocked as over the next few months my idea grew into a 50,000 word project. I eventually decided not to continue with this project over NANOWRIMO, but the progress I made reminded me that I could do anything-- if I just put the time and effort in.

Last year Jenny, Angel (my other writing buddies) and I took up the siren song of NANOWRIMO. I'd half-heartedly attempted it back in 2007-- but had only managed a paltry 10,000 words. This year, with the successes I'd had thanks to my 2500 words a week target I felt confident that I could actually hit 50,000 words in a month (crazy as it had taken me 3 months to hit that goal before). Nonetheless, we decided to set up a private blog to measure our successes, taunt each other into writing a little bit more, and post unedited snippets. The results were astounding. Jenny, Angel and I all crossed the NANO finish line for the first time.

It was then that I realized the one lesson I could never have been taught at University. A writer needs a group of friends, a group of people who understand the process, who can give you a good kick in the ass when you need it. In short, a writer needs some sort of community. Which is how we realized that it would be good fun to go 'public' with our ideas, and see if there were other people out there looking for a community-- a group of like minded 'lone wolves'.

So, here's my question-- what's your method? Do you have a set amount of hours or blocks of time you keep to each week? Do you have a word count you strive towards? Do you have some other method that works wonders? Because frankly, I'm always interested in learning new tricks.