Hi all. It's Sunday night. I didn't think I'd have much to say tonight. It's been a quiet week. Well outwardly. Inwardly, I've been living in my head and not in a good way.
Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me. Why do I have 20+ years of experience and get paid less than someone with no experience prior to the job we both work? Or why I can't get another job when she did? You know, daily angst of not doing what I'd love to be doing, but working because, you know money and bills.
And I'm done complaining. This is actually about writing. Yeah, really. After thinking and worrying about it all week because I was just tired and frustrated with my work, I took some time to get caught up on what I really want to be doing.
Writing.
I've been writing book two of the Nikki Page Mysteryies for over a year. I recently learned the joys of outlining, so I thought I'd fix the issues with the book by outlining the story and starting over. Yeah, no. It didn't work.
I'm a pantser, meaning I write by the seat of my pants, rather than being a plotter, who does outline each book. I have a rough idea of what the story is about, a beginning, and an end. And then I write. But I learned that with an outline you don't have to think so hard to put the words to paper. When it's planned, you write the chapter as plotted and it's done. It was the easiest and the fastest I've ever written 2500 words. Can you say an hour? Yep, I did.
The problems with outlining are, I'm still not great at outlining, I tend to go off the outline easily, and at times, I feel restricted.
So, after the outline debacle, I started over again. I'm now on draft 8a. But this time, after a practice outline, I did figure out my third suspect and tonight, I finally have that turning point that will lead me to the resolution of the mystery.
There's a benefit to outlining. But there's a benefit to the freeform way of writing that I've adhered to for fourteen years. The way that pulls out of me the best that my stories can be.
I think in the future I'll use a combination of the two, and hope for enjoyable results.
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