One NaNoWriMo novel, one incomplete screenplay, and a novel-in-progress with outlines and I suddenly no longer want to work without them. I suppose this is a good thing, since writing without is sometimes a big timesink, but I still feel like an outline junkie. I’ve never outlined short fiction before, but I craved the direction.
Not that I, you know, actually wrote on those stories, but you know.
As for the novel, I’m 33,500 words in right now. Despite the outline, which has everything that needs to happen plot-wise, I still find myself pantsing chapters to get to the plot point where I need to be. That seems to work for me. I also have the abortive stub of a chapter in a POV that I decided not to use for that chapter, but I’m not going to cut it yet because I’m trying to keep my wordcount up. Seeing my wordcount go down instead of up is too disheartening to cut things. Rewriting a scene to be someone else’s POV was bad enough; I wrote 1000 words that day but only gave myself credit for 500 because as part of the rewrite I cut 500 words. It’s silly, but the wordcount really makes me feel like I did something.
Speaking of something, I really need to write some short fiction and send it out. I’ve only got four stories in circulation right now.
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