I am a pantser. Every year I have ever tried to plan, I've failed NaNoWriMo. Why? Well, I love my stories, and I love the journey. I love discovering where they're going. This approach occasionally backfires, though, and I'll get stuck. I've tried a few times in the past to do outlines.
I like to blame my failures on the outlines themselves, but if I get really honest with myself; I don't think that was it!
So this year, I'm taking an old NaNo Novel, Heaven's Bounty, and reworking it. I've been completely stuck on it... I had no idea where to go. I love these characters SO much! But I couldn't figure out what to do with it.
I attended a writing conference last weekend, and had the pleasure of being dragged into into a mini-workshop for Joseph Campbell's "A Hero's Journey.
And in that 45 minutes, I knew what was missing. What to do with my story!
So today I'm writing up the madly written notes into something legible and at least peripherally understandable, and I'm going to start work on a real outline.
It's a little drafty in here, but I kinda like it on the planner's side.
Photo courtesy of Klara Kim
1 comment:
You sound JUST like me! Although... when I was still in school, I wrote by the seat of my pants and actually managed to finish things. Now, however, due to said finished things lacking everything but plot (which was occasionally sketchy as well), I plan. Like crazy. Outlines and bios and blah, blah, blah. And you know what? They never get finished. So this year, I think I'm to combine a bit of both and see where that takes me.
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