You know when you're a kid and you get to do paint by numbers, connect the dots, and trace pictures in coloring books to your heart's content? Art projects with guidelines, when you're still too young to know it's nobler to color outside the lines? Remember the pure joy of those days? Art with parameters? That's the feeling that comes with almost being done with the first draft of an outline for the novel.
The method I'm following calls for lots of preparation. Reading other people's novels, reading pitches on the back or inside covers of novels, studying plot structure, multiple levels of conflict, sympathetic and not so sympathetic characters, setting, theme, voice, point of view, and most important, a compelling premise. All that leading up to the creation of an outline from which to write the story.
Having the first draft of the outline is momentous. There are still inconsistencies, not everything works yet. This stage is fun though. It is like connect the dots. In places the outline is still just dots with no clear way to connect them yet, but at least there are lots of dots waiting to be connected. This is a heck of a lot more fun than when there were barely any dots at all.
Little spurts of dialogue come freely to mind and are put down for later possible use. Use within an emerging structure. Descriptions of places are forming themselves, finally with a reason for their existence. Characters are lining up in the wings, spraying their throats and practicing their lines. Persistence is paying off, because having a plot outline means a full first draft of the novel is within sight. Yahoo!
More later.
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