The Weekly Smile for 6/29/2020 #weeklysmile – outlined a book for the first time
I am an author and I have never outlined a book. I have never finished a book either. I enter NaNoWriMo and in less than an hour the July version starts. So with a lot of cursing and yelling I finally finished an outline if you can call it that. It is the first time not writing off the top of my head or seat of my pants LOL! I am a pantser deep down and not sure I can pull off using this outline. I may give up after a short period of time if that works better than following an outline which was like writing the story anyhow. So my smile is my first ever book outline.
Tessa –
Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses
New Author’s Website – http://www.tessadeanauthor.com
Author – Old Writing http://www.finallyawriter.com
About my life http://www.tessacandoit.com
Author of a book, a work in progress on the blog, https://tessacandoit.com/government-property-a-memoir-as-a-military-wife/
Highlighted chapters are done and ready to be read.
I am also a youtuber in the authortube section on writing. See my videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSpNS-6gfJ0s8eD1berLwQg
Tessa Dean - Author 
The outline can, of course, be amended to follow new ideas 😉 The only time I’ve made an outline is when I am half way through and am not sure where it is going. I do an outline so it doesn’t just ramble on forever getting nowhere. At that point I have the flavor of the story and so can figure out a fitting way forward.
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I just find the whole thing frustrating. I am a true pantser and even my research papers in high school were written without an outline and then one was created to turn in to the teacher. I didn’t write from one. The closest I came then was note cards that could be shuffled around. I have the whole thing created in my head and will try it for a bit later just to make sure there is nothing I wanted to add that is not in the story, but I just felt like I wrote the whole story without fleshing it out. It seems like a mighty waste of time and then total frustration that brought me to a halt for several days while I tried to figure out how I wanted to go. I know where I want to go in my head so the outline is unnecessary. I wasted a lot of time on it so will try to use it for now.
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I often write short stories 100% in my head before I put pen to paper…
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I even write books that way although they never get to a point usually that I can do anything with them. I started putting my one memoir piece online and I need to finish it, It is written just needs a final go through and then just copy and paste each section to a post so I can activate the rest of the chapters.
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