Writers Write Writing

I'd better squeeze in another one of these before the new year.  I've been letting my theoretical fans down.  That was a bit there. You know--anyway.  Lost Lamb is actually almost finished.  According to my newest calculations and forecasts and astrological readings, the final chapters should be written by the end of this month or the beginning of the next.  It's an exciting time and I just won't shut up about it to my friends.  But seriously, I set this goal when I was nine.  Let that sink in.  When I was nine I also wanted to be a scientist because I thought I could make potions and give myself the ability to breathe fire.  I sort of had scientist and wizard mixed up in my head, I guess.  Needless to say, once I learned the truth, I gave up on science.

I feel like if I didn't have fiction I wouldn't know who I was.  I've been looking back on my older pieces lately and sometimes I've discovered that some things that I never let anyone read weren't that bad.  Of course that lends to my fear of rejection and failure, but that's for another time.  But I'm more surprised at the massive one-to-several-year-long gaps in my writing.  I can't imagine myself doing that now.  I feel like fiction is in me, my blood and breath and soul.  Even if I never made a cent I'd be happy doing it because of the way I feel when I make something.  All the words moving perfectly in a symphony.  Or, more often, bouncing around my head like a group of drunken vikings.  Prepositional phrases smashing into dependent clauses and so forth.  But either way, I get it sorted out.  And I make something beautiful.

Interesting Problems

Do problems make something more interesting?

I think they do.  Other fiction writers should tell you the same unless they're soft in the head.  Lately I haven't had much to blog about, because my writing has been going great.  In fact, my new full-length novel (currently titled Lost Lamb) has been going amazingly since I sat down and wrote out a full outline of the plot.  I can use this skeleton to expand on chapter outlines so that when I sit down to write, I don't spend four hours staring at a blank screen.

This leads me to believe that this is the solution to everything I do.  Going to the grocery store?  Make an outline to accomplish my objectives.  Doing my laundry?  Make an outline.  Trying to lose weight?  Outline time.  Having sex?  Yup, outline that business.

Maybe I should start outlining my blog.

Outline.