Outlining

Forgive me if this doesn't make since. I currently have the cold from hell.

So outlining. The very word sends some writers running for their life. And well, I hate to break it to you, outlining is an invaluable tool for writing anything that takes time.

Why is it that so many writers hate it? Because it's just to hairy of a problem. Take an mpreg story for example. You have 9 months of important events to write about. Not only will have to write about the standard drama of fictional life, but also about standard pregnancy, and find some way for your uke to have gotten knocked up. That's three seperate subplots that have to be combined into one HUGE plot.

But of course, there is a solution. Create a time line. Now, timelines on their own are a bit of a hairy mess, 'specially if your a perfectionist like me and like to see how big of gaps there are between important events. However there are some basic tools that make this process as painless as possible (which still feels a bit like child birth, by the way, it just numbs it a bit). The simpliest, and most useful of which is already on your computer. Excel.

I have this lovely little tutorial here that I'm following to create a timeline for one of my nano fics. So far it's going swimmingly.

On the note of Nanowrimo, anyone else doing it?