The Aggravation of Outlining

I’m starting two brand new projects. One is a sequel to The Seventh Sons of Sycamore, which was released in March but mostly written in 2013. The other is Project Zero, a short story. That’s a lot of new ideas to come up with, and I don’t want to take too long, cause time’s a wasting.

Outlining is hard. Writing is as well, but there are key differences to the obstacles. Assuming you have at least a rough outline, then you know what you’re supposed to do when you sit down to write. You may not feel like doing it, but you know. With outlining, I’m very excited at the prospect of starting something completely fresh, of continuing Maxim and Diego’s stories, and further fleshing out the world of Sycamore.

But none of that excitement helps if the ideas don’t come.

Sometimes, outlining is triggered by a grand idea, and sometimes it is a task that needs to be completed as part of your job. The secret is that, if you do enough of Column B, then you’ll hit a spark and suddenly find yourself in Column A. That’s what happened to me on Wednesday. After two days of not really getting anywhere (well, I did build a combination grill/ smoker in my backyard!) I got a spurt of creativity. It wasn’t just one idea, but a series of interlocking ideas. It was fun. It was passionate. And I can honestly say that I am so excited to start writing this sequel that I will be tense until I begin.

So while this week lacked full-time productivity, I am getting somewhere good. I’ll need to redouble my efforts next week, and hope to have a rough (unfinished) novel outline as well as something for the short story.

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