Update

Oh, I'm a bad blogger. A bad, bad, bad blogger. However, this might actually mean I've been a good writer -- well, good in the sense that I'm actually writing or working on things related to writing, at least.

An idea I had originally written off as impossible a couple of years ago came back with a vengeance. I think I've managed to come up with a way to make the pieces fit mechanically, and when that happened, this block I'd been having over my first planned novel came undone and I've been under a flood of inspiration. Usually when this happens, I start trying to write, and then I get bogged down and barely get out two or more chapters before I run out of steam and start going "Where in the hell am I going with this?" Not this time.

I'm outlining. And I'm not allowing myself to put the proverbial pen to paper until the outline is finished. At first I didn't think this was going to work, but I was wrong. I've managed to outline quite a few chapters and I've discovered where I'm going to have trouble, where I need to up the tension, and where the plot just isn't moving at an interesting pace. I've got no idea when I'll work out all those kinks, but the good news is that so far, using this method of getting ideas out in a hurry without worrying about sentences, prose, dialogue, etc., I still have the inspiration there and I still want to keep at it. Even if I get stuck, I can easily skip ahead and work my way back, or make notes for ideas without having to worry that I'll have to rewrite whole chapters if it doesn't work.

Better yet, I've still got the urge to go back and start writing from chapter one, but I'm making myself finish the outline first. It's like the writing becomes a reward for completing the onerous task of outlining the entire novel. What's more is that while writing, I won't be going in blind. I'll know what's going to happen next, and if I forget what I wanted to have happen in a novel, it'll be right there on paper for me to refer back to. It's a nice feeling to have.

In addition to the outlining I've been doing, I'm also working on world-building. My grand idea is falling into place, and if I do this write, I will have a whole world in which I get to create and play. For me, this means a potentially endless well of ideas and opportunities to weave tales. It reminds me of why I was drawn to writing fiction and fantasy in the first place. I get to create a whole new world and I get to mold it as I see fit. It's fun.

Ahem. I may be a little excited about my breakthrough. Maybe eventually I'll share some of the ideas here. For now, it's back to outlining so I can fix some of the issues I've spotted.