Goodreads asked L. Jagi Lamplighter:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

L. Jagi Lamplighter First, write! (I think we should all be writers. No better way to do this than to write. ;-)

Second, a specific warning. People talk about outlining verses not outlining. But one almost never sees a warning about the very real and terrible dangers to outlining.

Some people can outline and write. This is wonderful! If you can do it, definitely, go for it!

However, what aspiring writers are seldom told is: writing a book is hard. One of the things that pushes you to do that hard work is the burning desire to tell the story.

Some of us suffer from the phenomena that, when we finish our outline, our subconscious thinks we are done. We told the story. We laid it all out.

And it stops producing ideas.

Writer's block sets in. The book stops.

I have seen this happen to many aspiring writers. Great ideas. Great beginning. They work out their outline. Boom. Not another word.

How do I know it's the outline? Happened to me...twice. Both times, I eventually tore up the later part of the outline and began just writing from some earlier point.

I finished both those books.

Since then, I've found, for me, that once I'm more than half way, I can work out a specific outline without any trouble. But, before that...I have to be wary of pinning in my subconscious.

Or, to put it differently, the Divine Muse has ideas to send that I won't receive if I decide too earlier what the story is going to be.

So...if you can outline and then write, great! Some authors do. It saves them grief.

If you can't, be aware of this and rip up any outline that does not increase your creativity.

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