Outlining vs Writing by discovery

One of the blogs I follows is Miss Snark's First Victim.
AT: http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/ .
Apparently, she received some advice that her book would be better if she did a detailed outline first. Puul-Leaseeee! I appreciated her response, which was to tell her what is wrong with her book but do not tell her how she has to write it.

When I began Moon Tree Brother, I tried to force myself to outline. I tried graphs, index cards, organizational charts, standing on my head (not really, that would not be a pretty - or safe- sight). But, I tried.

What I discovered was that it did not work for me. What works for me is writing by discovery. I start to do research on one thing and bump into something that I just have to include in the book. It may not make the final cut, as my beloved Roma (gypsy) scene did not make it, but it keeps me going.

My manuscript for book one, Moon Tree Brothers, is winging it's way back home from my personal editor, my beautiful sixth grade teacher daughter, as I write. I cannot wait to get onto my final edit before sending it out. In the meantime, I am working on book two.

With a working title of Moon Tree Madness, I am having a blast. Things are getting crazy in the Moon Tree and I only slightly hyperventilate that I have no idea where this will end before I remember that I had no idea where book one would end for a very long time. It actually has had two different endings. This is a lot better than the twenty-seven different openings it has had.

The thing is, we each have our own process. I do not think my book would work near as well if I tried to force it into an outline I did before I had discovered all the wonderful things that happened along the way.

More power to you, if you outline. It's all about what works for you.

When the world is just a little off.

First, my favorite blogger, http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/, just disappeared one day. Everyone deserves a day or two off but she was gone fifteen days. She reappeared yesterday with pictures of knotted yarn. I've had knotted yarn. I totally understand. I'm happy she is back, but that makes me wonder if we owe it to our "followers" to let them know we are in deed alive.

Which, of course, brings me to the fact that I disappeared for, well a long time, and I gained yet another follower. I do think this disappearing is good for my blog but since I am really, honestly and truthfully in the home stretch with my manuscript, I need to get busy on this blog again.

The only thing between me and an agent now is Meijers. Yes, Meijers, as in the big store like WalMart only classier and less noisy. That's just my opinion since I am irritated at all the price roll-ups at my local walmart and Meijers is thirty miles away.

Anyway, sixth grade teacher/daughter has completed her edit of my manuscript. She tells me that only one chapter is really redlined and that she has put it in her car so she will not forget to mail it at Meijer's, next time she goes. Hmmm, mail it at Meijers?

I talked to my 88 year-old mother yesterday and she reminded me not to travel today and tomorrow as we will be hit with rain and wind from this huge hurricane that is hitting the Gulf. (insert long pause here.) All I can figure is she fell asleep during a show about Katrina, woke up to see the forecast for Katrina and fell back to sleep. She's all battened down though and waiting and since we live in central Indiana, she's got a pretty long wait.

ATandT keeps trying to sell me high speed but then telling me they don't offer it in my area. Mean joke? Did you know you are not allowed to blog an ampersand?

Our son tells us he is engaged via Facebook. Ok, to be fair, he is in the Army, in Germany, and in the field, so he cannot use his phone, but he could Facebook it.

On the plus side, I keep reading that Middle Grade and Young Adult Fantasy is still hot, so as soon as Meijer's ships my manuscript to me, I'll get at it and, in the meantime. I will do my best to post more often and untanble my yarn on my own time.

The "What if" moment

Your characters need an environment and my big "what if" led to the discovery of Astronaut Stuart Roosa.

In 1971, Roosa went into orbit on Apollo 14. Since he had been a Forest Service smoke jumper, he decided that his personal kit would include hundreds of tree seeds.

Four to five hundred seeds from the Douglas Fir, Sweetgum, Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, and Sweetgum trees were included. He and his seeds stayed in the Kitty Hawk command module as it orbited the moon as other astraonauts stepped on the moon.

During decontamination the containers burst and the seeds were mixed together. Fortunately, nearly all the seeds germinated and the Forest Service had over four hundred trees to plant.

1975 and 1976 saw the trees sent to their future homes. The White House lawn, Brazil, Switzerland and even the Emperor of Japan received trees. Valley Forge, NASA, Koch Girl Scout Camp in Indiana, Goaddard Space Flight Center in Maryland were among states to receive trees.

You can read more about it here: The Moon Trees

Twenty years later, you can not tell a non-orbit tree from one that has orbited the moon, but WHAT IF???

What if those trees were imbued with special powers from their time in orbit and became the home of a world of creatures bent on saving the world?

What's your WHAT IF?

I'm BACKKKKKKKK!!! and finding my voice!

And, I am hoping that this is a condition that continues. Absolutely no guarantees in this world where it took me two computers and twenty minutes to get on-line yesterday.

I have finally made friends with my Inspiron. Yes, I did have to restore it to factory settings twice and am holding my breath the external modem keeps working.

I am slowly making friends with my new eyes too. I should say "lens'" as that is really all that is new, after cataract surgery. My left eye seems better and I am adjusted to reading blurred until I can get a script for reading glasses.

Now, to the fun things in life. I am excited about my book again. I have two great editors now. The new one, who is reading it as a brand new reader of the book, is excited about it and has given me some good input. She's as full of ideas as my first editor is. I like to have a reader who is picking the book up blind, with no idea where it is coming from or even what my writing style is. She has never read anything by me before and is looking at it with a clean eye, so to speak. (Yes, I am obssessing on this eye thing a wee bit.)

Both editors have helped me find my voice and say what I want to say in a new and unique way. I had a pottery teacher like that in Casper, Wyoming. He could see through what I was trying to do, right to what I really wanted and needed to do, and lead me in that way.

I had set myself a deadline of March 1st, to get the book out, but it is so much better now and it needs to be "all it can be." Hmmmm, what made me think of that?

Oh, yeah, my grandson/son is graduating from basic training the first of April and we are going to sunny Oklahoma for the ceremony. He phoned today and told me it was 70 degrees one day and they woke up, on their camping trip, to five below, an ice storm and rain. So, how do you pack for that?

I am not actually all that excited about driving thirteen hours but am anxious to give him a hug. The motel has high speed, so I can let let you know what the weather is.

I also need to thank a very special grandson for the funding for this trip.

Why do I need internet when I can't see to read it?

Wow! I don't write for over a month and I gain three followers. Would you guys consider paying me not to write?

My status is about the same. I am online on my old Sony Vaio desktop and my new Dell Inspiron 1545, with external modem, sits at my writing desk unable to go online. AOL neither can help nor care about the situation. The second tech who helped me was most apologetic about not being able to help. The third tech was totally delusional. They ignored my protests that the machine was still unable to connect to AOL and congratulated themselves on a successful session.

My IT nephew tried to help but, I believe we have now figured out it is neither my external modem nor my AOL dial up. I'm rooting for Windows 7 at this time and ready to kick myself for not just installing Windows XP. Remember good old XP? That's the last Windows OS that actually worked. Oh, how I long for the good old days.

I also long for my old eyes. My cataract surgery is complete. Yes, I have 20/20 in my right eye and I can see forever and to the moon with it. The left eye? Not so much. It's barely 20/80 now and I am wearing +300 (I think it is, since I can't see) reading glasses and must sit 8 1/2" from the computer screen. This is difficult when the Inspiron laptop is like 10" wide. The ophthalmologist tells me that it is caused by my lazy left eye. I also understand that complete recovery can take two to four months. I'm not sure I buy that, the lazy eye excuse, but what's done is done. I had my cry just thinking about not being able to paint again, but have moved on now.

I am currently looking for the silver lining in all this.

External modems and internal vision

I feel guilty being even the slightest unhappy with my world, when I have water, food, a roof over my head, and medical care (at least until March 31st). But, it is the only way to let you know I have not abandoned my blog, it has just been a bit hard to get to lately.

You would think that you could plug in a new computer and be good to go, alas, NO!

My faithful Gateway tablet gave up its ghost. I am obsessive about back ups and also got a few hours advanced warning that things were not right, so i did not lose my book or anything, however, my new Dell Inspiron 1545 came complete with OUT a modem.

Okay, you look through the list of stuff you are getting and you notice what they are giving you but nowhere did it say, at least in noticeable letters, you do NOT get an internal modem. I then ordered one and got online quite fine until I went to my Master's Daughter for Christmas and enjoyed WiFi, came home and my Internet would not work.

Yes, I am still on AOL dial-up. It stinks, but it is all I have, so i checked the setting and I was indeed trying to go on dial-up, with my external modem and then I spent an hour, on the phone with Dell. We did so much changing that I could not possibly write down each step just in case and sure enough, just in case happened the next time I went to the library on DSL. And, it did.

So, I am currently on a very old Windows XP desktop, on dial up. Some days I can get on, some days I cannot. I am working on the laptop again but my eyes are complicating all of it.

This is also not the month to fight anything having to do with reading as I am having cataract surgery and, while I now have 20/20 vision in my right eye (a new one for me) I am really struggling to read. Believe me, had I known and if this was elective surgery, I would not have done it. I would rather wear glasses and be able to read easily. But, since cataracts have to go, I did not have a choice.

I am sincerely hoping that tomorrow, after the left eye is done, that things will eventually even out or whatever, at the very least I will get reading glasses, and life will be back to normal; well, as normal as my life ever gets, once i get my laptop working on line.

My new Dell and I are cohabitating.

When the Gateway broke, I was devastated. Since the clips on the swivel screen had broken a year earlier, I was not too surprised but I loved that machine. Then, I used grandson's Gateway with VISTA. Not a good match but I found out that if you force yourself to use it, you can make peace.

My new Dell has Windows 7. We are in discovery mode with each other. I have figured out how to stop my thumb from setting off weird windows. I have also discovered that they make computers without modems now. Yeah, you out there in the boondocks, no modem! Who would have thunk???

It took me about forty minutes on their help phone to get my new external modem to actually work, but here I am back online. Now, the problem is my webpage. It works but I have these HTML errors and I am just not sure how critical that is. I do have several pages left to go.

We spent several days, of the holidays, with my Master's daughter and, guess what? Yep, her computer broke down too but was still under warranty. The bad thing, for me (not for her), was that she lost all her notes on my book. I guess that is for her too as she has promised to go over it again. She is only working three jobs right now, so what the heck???

Hope you all had a good holiday.