I never learned how to write an outline. I just don’t get it somehow, something eludes me that’s so basic and fundamental that I can’t articulate it usefully, and nobody’s ever been able to help. The closest I ever got, I think, is when I wrote a lot of little synopses for a collection of short stories with a loose continuity between them. Tiny, one paragraph summaries like you might see in TV Guide telling you what to expect on Tuesday’s episode. I think maybe I had the essence of it there, perhaps I’ll try building on that concept later.

I’ve been trying to write that SG-1 fanfic for Cyndi for weeks now, and failing miserably. I know that in some ways I’m making things harder for myself than they need to be while trying to write this beast, but really I think my biggest problem is that I simply don’t understand how to plan out a story from vague ideas into concrete words. It feels like I need to be able to hold the entire thing in my mind at once or I’ll just wind up flailing around uselessly.

I’m not giving up on it, nor am I trying to make excuses for how long it’s taking. Mostly I’m just whining. After I learned a bit more about SG-1 and thought over Cyndi’s request, I felt inspired. I was sure that I’d be able to crank out a story pretty quickly and then move on, but instead I’m learning that writing fiction is really, really hard.

On an unrelated note, I still haven’t found a WordPress theme I like. Probably going to be changing it again and again for a while yet. Seems like there was something else I wanted to mention, but I’m too tired to think of it so I’ll just tally up next week’s word count and go to bed.