Adventures in plotting

So I'm friends with writers who are really meticulous with doing outlines and plotting things - like JK Rowling, yo. And then there are writers who just tend to wing it, you know? Who feel their way into a story, much like Stephen King. Of the two camps, I've always considered myself the latter. I just don't like thinking out the entire book - I feel it kills the passion, so to speak.

On the other hand I sometimes end up with books that don't resemble what I originally set out with. I almost always have to re-write earlier chapters to accommodate what ends up as the book's thrust, and I always tend to linger on exposition, with the meat of the story all crammed in the end.

Anyway, what this whole exposition (yukyukyuk) is leading to is this: I have the opportunity to write a short novella with a specific sort of setting. Due to the word count limit, my usual meandering exposition things won't cut it. And I also got to thinking: maybe it would be nice to use this short one-off to build into more stuff that people might want to read? (I know, I know. Not exactly groundbreaking, authors have been doing this for years, but bear with this plotless wanderer, yeah?)

So I busted out the notebook and started outlining. And plotting. And outlining some more.

Reader, I know have the outline for 2.3 books.

Does that mean there are two, hopefully three books in my future? I certainly hope so! And I'm really excited about this!

If ennui and overall busy-ness doesn't set in, I'm looking at some books that are a bit different from what I'm used to putting out. It'll be more of a mix of genres than out-and-out romance. Oooh this is going to be fun!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have seven-tenths of another book to plot out...