outline, crafts

the first few days of writing went pretty well. i banged out a few thousand words and i felt good about them. then suddenly i felt stymied and without a place to go. i had no idea about the next scene and i felt sunk. this has happened to me many times before.

but then, somewhat reluctantly following the advice of former college buddy and 2-time published novelist mailman, i decided to tighten up and make an outline. i was resistant because i like so much the idea of the seat-of-my-pants style of writing - that's exciting to me, not knowing what's coming next, constant surprises. but, obviously, that hasn't worked out so well for me in the past, except (arguably) in those 50,000-words-in-30-days whirlwind november marathons. (those were fun and i met the deadlines but i hesitate to say they were actually good novel[la]s.) so yesterday i looked on some websites on the subject of outlining novels and then i did some freewriting about my main character and what i think i want him to go through in this story. that was already more planning for a fiction-writing project than i've ever done. and this morning i hammered out an outline of a 13-chapter novel, soup to nuts. (i guess i find the number 13 lucky.) at this point i have between 2 and 4 sentences describing each chapter, so there's a lot of room for exploration of character and those sort of things that make writing fun for me. but i am thinking that this skeletal structure will be a helpful thing. so at the moment i'm pleased.

and yesterday was tacoma's art on the ave thing, basically a craft fair with food and stuff, taking up several blocks of 6th avenue. our friend kristi came over. it was sunny but not too hot. we saw lots of jewelry and other crafty things. we saw a demonstration of roller derby girls in action, and that was fun. kara bought some tie-dyed tee shirts. i got crazy sunburned, because i'm an idiot that way. we ended up in the wine bar that's right across the street from our house. it was a really good time.

so today i'll do some more work in the yard and then i'll probably read and reread and futz with my new outline a few hundred times (as i am wont to do whenever i write anything, including these silly blog posts). and kara's got a paper of her own to write today. after my yardwork is done for the day and i've had my shower, i'll probably relax and see what's recorded on the tivo. after all, i'm on vacation here.