So you filled your hands

I think I'm starting to grow out of one my more pernicious writing habits. I don't know when I picked it up, but for the longest time I've only been able to complete a story in a completely linear fashion. I'd have very detailed ideas for scenes, but I wouldn't allow myself to write more than an outline and lines I didn't want to lose.

This is strange, because when I was churning out epic fiction as a kid (call it age seven to fourteen, and I really do mean epic, in both scope and wordcount), I never had this problem. Something happens years down the road in the continuum? Great! Write it out today. The rest of the present scene isn't going anywhere. But somewhere along the line, I must have started insisting on making chunks of story wait their turn. I would then get incredibly frustrated when I was stuck, because I had all this other stuff that could have been happening, but I had to get this part done first.

Right now I'm completing a story on a time crunch. It's a huge story with a complex timeline, and I'm using Scrivener to within an inch of its life. Not that working to the wire (and the bone, if we're being honest) is advisable, but it's forcing me to accomplish what I can when I can, and that includes writing endings before knowing exactly what it is they end.

I would not be able to do this without an outline, so, one more point for organization. I think it may be that I didn't outline quite so much when I was younger, and that supplanted writing ahead, but I've figured out that an outline isn't so much a blueprint or a set of instructions. The image in my head is of a lattice, so climbing plants and vines can take over. The best of linear and non-linear thinking in one handy metaphor!