The Lounge

I am an in between. In some ways, I could be considered a pantser because I rarely write novel outlines and didn't really follow them. I've even picked a novel for National Novel Writing Month just a couple of minutes before the month started before.

However, the first year that I ever made it to 50,000 words was also the first year I did novel prep in October. That included outlines, practice stories and character sketches. I've got a few novels that even have their own music playlists, which are helpful when writing.

Also, for a fantasy writer I am terrible at world building. Like I don't have books or pages of notes about elements of the world. Often in that regard, I just write. It's a little unorthodox but I did managed 160,000 words of a fantasy story one year for NaNoWriMo. Still need to rewrite that into two books.

Most of the time, I find small outlines helpful. Like I may do a quick outline for the current or next few scenes to see where I am going right now. Most of the time, I know where things are going in my head so just write. It's not like I never know anything. I've got over 50 ideas and most of them I've been thinking about months or years. When I'm going to bed or have down time, I think about my story ideas. Now I just need to get things done and figure out how to do next steps so something can get published.