January 6: Unproductive and Outlining

We're still keeping away from gatherings, so while we went to the wargaming store to pick up a few things, we came home to game.

I made a point of exercising early-ish this morning so I could shower before we went out to the store. After the store, we picked up fast food for Lut for his lunch, and I made pasta for myself at home because I didn't really want any restaurant food.

At home, we ate and dinked about until I poked Lut again about playing Kill Team. He wanted to use a new scenario. We're playing through the ship scenarios, and switching is a production, because the ship terrain set fits together like badly-machined and irritating Legos. It takes over an hour to break down the terrain and set it up for a new map. By the time we had the new map set up, Lut wasn't feeling up to playing. We sat down to watch two episodes of The Bad Batch instead, and then he went to lie down.

That was about when Coffee's stream started, and about when I realized that I hadn't really done much of anything today. 

So I looked at my goals for the month. I have three goals that I've basically ignored so far:

Complete an outline for a new book
Flesh out editing list for A Dragonling's Family
Get 25% (combined) through editing one or more drafts.

I still don't want to work on any of these things. I went to draw instead, and discovered that while I'd plugged the charger into my tablet, the plug had come loose from the wall. So it wasn't actually charging and was down to 20% battery. I have it charging now.

So I may have to actually work on one of the things I don't want to do. The outline feels like the hardest thing. I think it's because I am used to thinking of outlines as something I can knock out in a few days and therefore I don't need to break it into smaller pieces. But instead, it feels like a bottomless pit that I pour effort into but it's still not done so what was the point?

Anyway, I should figure out what the parts of Writing an Outline are so I can figure out when it's done.

Things I need before writing an outline:

• Setting: even if I'm reusing a setting, I'll need to know some specifics about where the characters live and interact and have book events take places.
• Characters: names, appearances, flaws, strengths, that sort of thing.
• Character motivations (what do they want? NB: Characters don't need to know what they want but I do)
• Character arcs (how will they change over the course of the story?)
• Conflicts: how do the characters get in each other's way? Do impersonal forces impede them (societal pressures, natural disasters, physical or psychological issues, etc.)

Actual Outline

• Beginning
• All the stuff that happens in the middle, including climactic events and whatnot
• Denouement
• End

There. So maybe I can mark those things off as I finish them and that'll make me feel more like I'm making actual progress? (I know many writers follow specific structures for the beginning/middle/end but I like making weird personal pacing choices instead of doing anything as sensible as hitting story beats.)

Part of why I don't want to work on edits is that I'm thinking of adding stuff to A Dragonling's Family based on what I decide to do with my next WIP. Probably nothing major, just having some characters exist in the background. But still, it'll add to the changes. Also, I think I should stop trying to work on outlining while playing 4thewords. I've been fighting a lot of tiny 5-minute monsters and there's too much "I should write a little bit more to finish this monster" and not enough time for "I should think and dig around the previous book."