Do I use outlines? Certainly. But I’m relatively new to them. I finished my first book without one, which is probably part of why it took eight years to finish. And it still needs work, being a first novel and all, so it’s currently shelved while I work on other projects. For my second one, I used more than one, and that made it go faster. Various methods were used by me to figure out where the events all took place in the grand scheme of things. Of course, a lot of the space in-between major and comparatively minor points was waiting to be filled in, which wound up slowing me down. It took less than two years to get to where it is now, however.  

Currently I’m on my third book, the two previous works shelved to finish later. This one I’m really trying to fine tune my process. I seem to work best if I have an outline, which makes my dreams of being a pantser disappointing in its unrealistic goals. I just don’t think well on the fly. I need to sort out details, at least most of them, beforehand. I need that space to test drive ideas in my head, and if I do that it really shows in the speed of my work.  

So where does that leave me now, on the third book? Well, I’m almost finished fine tuning the outline. This part has gone a lot faster than I expected, and I’m hoping it’ll help reduce the number of times I get, add a note on what should go where, and keep going. Because as handy as that is in the beginning it still needs to be filled in at some point. And yes, coming back to it later is usually easier because I’ve had time to think about it. But still, if I could reduce the number of times I have to do that, it would be handy.  

My lesson is that working from a completed outline fast tracks my own personal writing process. That could very well change in the future, but for now, that’s what works. So why fix what isn’t broken? Seems silly to me to try to fit myself into someone else’s idea of what writing looks like. That means I’m doing what works best for me. If it works, it works, right?