"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Epiphany Moments, Outlines, and Bonus Points

I love epiphany moments when I’m writing - LOVE them. They are those special little moments when you just want to smack yourself on the forehead and yell “Why didn’t I think of that before!” Brilliance shinning and immense relief all at once. Love it.

Anyway, I had one of said moments yesterday. (And yes I did smack myself on the forehead. :D) But it was fabulous. And it was like a dam releasing after that. The ideas just flowed. I tacked on three more outlined chapters to the story I haven’t really made any headway on since last summer.

So I give bonus points to my outlining experiment. Since I’m just outlining, I don’t have to have every facet of every conversation and every movement set in stone before moving on. I can quickly jot down notes on how the chapter is going to flow and then keep moving. It’s great!

I’m officially an outline person now. :D

What about you? Outline or winging it?

2 comments:

Katrina said...

I'm an outline person. Completely. If I don't have a basis for where my story is going to go, it ends up going all over the place and then fizzling.

C.M. Villani said...

With my other stories, I'd have it layed out in my head, but this time around I sort of got stuck for a long time. I couldn't decide how I wanted to proceed once I got to a certain point!

So I decided to go against the natural grain of my writing process and try writing my outline down. It has been working amazingly! I've been making such great process.

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