Around the beginning of this month, I wrote an outline for this novel. I spent all weekend on it, inserting the right pieces in all the right places (Heroine and Heroes have buddy-buddy moment, Heroine and Hero have some naughty fun, Heroine gets into deep crud when she spies on the Big Bad, etc.).
Then I threw it all out and started over.
Better to throw out an outline than an entire manuscript, right?
But as I wrote the new outline, I started throwing in passages of prose. Snippets of dialogue that I felt needed to be written right then and there before they were lost in the ether of my mind (lost among dessert recipes and pictures of Michael Ealy). Before I knew it, I was writing the first chapter.
Then details started to pop up. Ideas I’d never thought of in the outline, like religions these people practice. It was around this time I realized that maybe I didn’t have to write a complete outline. I didn’t have to have the entire world laid out before writing; I could let it organically form through the prose. Besides, if I’d spent any more time on the outline, I might never get around to the actual writing, or the magic would have faded.
This will probably be my first book. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a sweet story with just a sprinkle of wish-fulfillment (seems to be all the rage these days) and just enough struggle to keep things interesting. Sticking to any project is the real challenge, but I’m glad I’ve stuck with this one.
