By the Seat of my Pants

I'm not really good at planning. This applies to all aspects of life, not just writing. I've been parenting by the seat of my pants for over sixteen years now, and hoping it turns out all right. People keep asking me for parenting advice, and I just give them a blank stare. I don't know. I never really thought about my actual parenting methods much. I just kind of do whatever feels right. Now you're probably wondering how my kids have turned out. They're amazing. No thanks to me, I'm sure.

Okay, this really is about writing. I'm 150 pages into my novel now. I of course have to do some advanced planning or I'd just be staring down at the blank page for days and days, so I wrote this outline when I first started. I planned through about chapter three. Or what I thought would be chapter three. I'm nearly done with chapter ten, and am just getting to the stuff I had planned for chapter three. Good thing, too, or the novel would probably have turned out way to short! Anyway, occasionally I have to stop writing for a bit and plan out a little more. It's like one step out into the darkness before I get any more light. I love the way the story surprises me, though. I love when the characters suddenly do something unexpected or when I get that flash of insight on how to tie the subplots together. So, how much advanced planning do you do before writing? Sometimes I think I ought to be a little more organized. Maybe so, but for now I'm going to keep writing by the seat of my pants, like always.

(P.S. Don't miss the story feature in the post below!)