Wednesday, August 5, 2015

IWSG: Self Doubt

 
 
It's the first Wednesday of August and time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. If you'd like to find out more about it or want to sign up go HERE. Thanks to Alex Cavanaugh and the wonderful members of the community who volunteer to make this event happen every month. This month the volunteers are Nancy Gideon, Bob R Milne, Doreen McGettigan, Chrys Fey, Bish Denham, and Pat Garcia! Stop by to say "hey" if you get a chance.

I've taken a huge step back this year and have written very little. I wrote a short story for the anthology with my Untethered Realms group which is a prequel to the series I'm planning. I've written two chapters for novel #1 in the series to get a feel for how it will go and am maybe halfway through with the outline.

I've always written from an outline, but...

After taking James Patterson's Masterclass and paying close attention to the section on outlines and receiving his actual outline (eeep!) for his novel, Honeymoon, I'm trying to follow his model by making my outline more detailed. Patterson's outlines are numbered and each one is a chapter/section. His method focuses on story, and each section is like a movie scene. Just tell the story. Go back and fill in the blanks. Keep fleshing it out, then get rid of anything that doesn't move the story forward. Put in some twists. By the time you're done, the story is set and all you have to do is write it. His method, to me, is more straight forward and less mechanical than other craft books I've read.

So--I'm hoping to write a better novel than I've ever written before!

But I'm riddled with self doubt!
 
Yikes!
 
What are you working on?