Write Away

I used to be a pantser. I would start something with no earthly idea where it was going.

And I'd hit the Great Swampy Middle and start loathing the damn thing. Invariably. The only reason I ever finished anything was sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. And, you know, I did finish, most times. But the process sucked.

Then I decided to do a short-story NaNo project--and I knew that if I didn't have a plan going in that it would fail miserably. So I used the seven-point outline and figured out my plots. It front-loaded the process, but it made the writing so much easier--and I didn't have time to start hating the thing in the middle because I blew right past it. I have now written seventeen or eighteen stories via this process and wish to God I'd started doing it sooner.

The one time I tried to write a novel by scene-stitching, it was horrible. I have 144,000 words of total hot mess that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to salvage. I don't do that anymore. That project (along with the soul-sucking agent hunt for my first novel) has convinced me that I am not a novelist.

All that being said, there is no One Writing Method To Rule Them All. Poke twenty writers and ask them their process, and you'll get twenty answers. Hell, sometimes the answer changes project by project.

If outlining isn't working for you (whether it's because it steals the magic of the creative process or some other reason), then stop doing it. It took me years to figure out a process that actually worked and there's no shame in trying different methods to figure out your own.