A Case of Writerlust: advice

I'm a writer in that I'm the type of loser who goes to cafes and sits in the corner typing away at her "novel."

Wait. I always love* when I hear people poke loving fun at that stereotype around me, as if it's not a real thing, as if it somehow makes me less of a writer because of where I choose to write, when I choose to write, how I choose to write. Or maybe it's because I'm a writer who went to school for writing. Or maybe it's because I'm a writer who went to school for writing who writes in cafes and works at Starbucks...

...so I'm a stereotype.

Moving on, my point is that I go to cafes. Well, to be more specific, I go to Barnes and Noble. Which is all well and good because I love their Spinach and Turkey wrap, but sometimes it's noisy, and bright, and they're playing some weird instrumentalized version of a movie soundtrack which really only makes it more distracting because now of course I have to spend 20 minutes listening to the song to figure out what soundtrack it is and by the time I figure out it's Les Mis I've lost the train of thought of whatever I was writing.

I'm trying.

The thing about writing is that everyone does it differently. You can buy a dozen different books on writing the perfect story for $19.99 in the Writing/Publishing section of the bookstore, they'll tell you a dozen different ways to plot out your novel or design "realistic" characters or hook the reader, and likely you'll never use any of them, instead developing some strange and half-crazed method of your own to do it.

The thing is, I've tried the strange and half-crazed methods. I've tried programs (Liquid Story Binder was a genius and fascinating program, with so many things to do that I often got lost just playing around with stuff instead of actually writing*), I've tried switching from writing to typing and back to writing, I've tried the stopping halfway through your ideas thing (which is risky, and while it often works, often leads me to just completely lose the rhythm of the scene), I've tried turning around seven times, bringing it around town, and stepping on my right foot before finally settling down to work.

So I wanted something less kooky. I wanted an outline. I loved the idea of a stack of loose leaf papers, with scrunched up, tiny letters all penned in with multi-colored ink, a different color for every different day an idea struck me. Notice: I loved the idea of it. I had (and to be honest, still have) absolutely no idea what I'd be doing once the paper was in front of me. Luckily, I knew some people who did.

I went to my monthly sci-fi/fantasy writer's group at Barnes & Noble and as my first honest attempt at accomplishing my resolution, I flat out asked them, "how do you guys do outlines?"

Well, I received a ton of good advice, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I kind of already knew that there was no real "right" answer. So I decided to pick what felt the most comfortable for me.

One guy suggested that I take a ream of paper and tape it up against the wall, then start drawing a timeline.
Pros: This was awesome and I almost immediately wanted to do this. A GREAT BIG FRIGGIN' TIMELINE ON MY WALL. I would feel like the manic writer, chain smoking cigarettes and sipping whiskey while I squinted at the lines in the poor lighting of my room, fervently scribbling something out with a marker while cursing under my breath...
Cons: My mom just got angry because I "helped decorate" for Christmas by stringing a 100ft long ethernet cable across multiple floors in our house. Highly doubting she would appreciate butcher paper wrapped around the kitchen.

EVERYONE suggested index cards.
Pros: Small...portable...I could work with this. One index card for each scene, I can move them around in order, throw them like Gambit when I get frustrated at the lack of continuity, could still incorporate multi-colored pens and maybe even stickers...
Cons: I am very clumsy. I drop things. I can just imagine spilling the pile of cards out of my bag (which has developed a habit of turning itself upside down on me while I'm getting out of the car or picking it up off my floor) and being blown away by the sudden and unfortunate gusts of wind that accompany such things. Also cards are tiny and I need room to fight with myself.

And then, just when I was starting to feel disheartened (maybe the outlining life is not the life for me? Maybe I am doomed to a long future of abstract thoughts and stream of consciousness writing?) someone offered up this: Instead of index cards, why not Power Point?

Power Point, the program I touched once to make a Daft Punk slideshow for a French project in junior year and promptly never used again.

But, why not Power Point?

Let's go over this:

Pros: I have a laptop. I love my laptop. My laptop does not get blown away in the wind. With fonts and colors? Possibly more fun than multi-color pens.
Cons: It's not exactly as writery and glamorous as a ream of paper stuck up on the wall. And if my laptop crashes...then everything is gone anyway so maybe that's not so much a Con as a worst case scenario for my life in general.

Basically, I walked out of that meeting knowing it was Power Point or bust. I felt rejuvenated. I would write the shit out of this outline.

So the next night, I got out of work with my entire evening planned out for me: I was stopping by the grocery store, picking up some ingredients, cooking myself a fine meal and settling in for a night of some sultry, sexy Power Pointing.

I decided to make something good, you know? I eventually settled on some chicken salad from a recipe I'd been sitting on for quite some time. I did make it, and felt like a real chef barring the part where I accidentally cooked the chicken while defrosting it in the microwave and sent emergency, tear-filled texts to my mom asking if I had ruined everything.

That bacon? Dogs love that bacon, apparently.

(If you make it, though, take note of the "for one" part of the recipe. I'm a big girl and I need more than 2 ozs of chicken and ballparked some combination of ingredients that seemed proportionally alright for human consumption. Still turned out awesome.)

Check out that 300-some odd calories of salady awesomeness. Also I'm too broke for wine, so note the 85 cent bottle of sparkling water.

Class? Class.

With my gourmet** meal ready, I settled in on the couch and fired up my program. Somewhere, "Eye of the Tiger" was playing. I picked a theme, a font - centaur, for all my fantasy outlining needs - and went to work.