HOW I FINALLY FINISHED MY NOVEL OUTLINE AS A PANTSER
Let me just say that the struggle was unbelievably real.
I was spinning wheels trying to apply all the advice I’d seen floating around on the internet.
And it just wasn’t working. (This isn’t to say that the advice wasn’t good, because it put me in front of the right people and directed me some helpful resources. But what I needed was more than advice. I needed accountability and a system that was going to work for me.)
SKIN IN THE GAME
I needed to first have skin in the game. With how busy I am in my life running two businesses full-time and teaching full-time with a dog and doing it all by myself, it was too easy to make excuses to not write my book.
So, I decided to invest in myself and purchased a course along with book coaching services. (Note: I did not go into debt to do this.)
With some financial incentive and a bonafide contract signed, I’m fully invested. There’s no way out even if I wanted there to be.
FOCUSED IDEAS
The first challenge that I had was that my story was too elaborate.
Interestingly, even though it’s fiction, a lot of it is based on real events, so I didn’t have to do much in the imagination department except invent the characters a storyline that made sense.
But the problem was that my story idea was so big that my book coach told me that I had at least 20 books in initial draft, so she suggested that I take one of the conflicts and write a book around that one conflict.
Talk about an epiphany. That’s how some people are cranking out 3-4 books a year? I thought.
Who knew? Not me!
SCENE RECYCLING
As I dug deeper into the process, I kept envisioning different scenes between the characters, but I wasn’t sure if they were usable for my book. Everything felt disjointed.
But, I decided to write them anyway and then I could decide to use them later or recycle them. I now have a recyclable file of scenes for future stories in my drive that I can go back to if needed. Don’t delete your writing!
THE BATTLE OF SELF-DOUBT
Managing self-doubt is tough, but I honestly just fight through it. I try to maintain a good attitude no matter what, and even though it’s not always easy to do, it’s better than the alternative (at least for me).
One advantage that I’ve always had in life, though, is that I’m a natural optimist and an idealist. I lean more in that direction naturally, and when I feel myself being pulled in the other direction I try to take some corrective action that will bring me back to stasis.
Self-doubt, however, did severely affect the way that I viewed my ideas. I don’t personally have a problem with a book evolving as you write, but I think there’s a line between thinking “This isn’t good enough. Let me change it,” and a natural evolution.
I know that when my mind does this, it’s just trying to protect me, but I tell it, “It’s okay, brain. I’m okay. This is good for me,” and then I continue on.
PROGRESS, PROGRESS, PROGRESS
There’s just too many excuses that I can make not to write. It’s just to easy. As I said before, I have to have skin in the game.
By the way, my next deadline is July 11 to have my entire rough draft completed, and I just finished the outline. But I have to get it done if I want to enroll in my book coach’s next program. That’s just how it is.
I need to have my back in the wall to get these things done. It’s how I am, and now that I know that, I know what to do to make myself get things done.
See ya on the flip side!
— Knikki Hernandez
(Also, I hope this helps you. If it did, feel free to like, follow, or subscribe. Your subscriptions motivate me to continue publishing.)
How I Completed My Novel Outline As a Pantser