random late night post

I've been sitting at my dining room table, working on my writing for the past two hours.  Usually I sit on my comfy couch or ikea chair when I'm home, but tonight my boyfriend has two friends over and they're watching t.v. in the living room.  My laptop was off, so all I had was some print-outs of character sheets, novel worksheets, etc., and the latest version of my ms (currently a little less than 16k words).  The main problem with my WIP so far is that I didn't do a damn bit of plot outlining before I started.  I had a main idea and I just ran with it.  So about 5k words ago I started to run out of steam.  I read some blogs and writing tips online, and realized that my WIP was missing a very important thing - conflict.

I'm sure you can imagine how bad a novel without conflict could be.  I mean, there's a background conflict (there are some good aliens on earth, and some not-so-good ones), but when it comes to the main characters there wasn't a real reason why the two of them couldn't / shouldn't get together.  I sat here, thinking (as opposed to websurfing!!!), and was able to expand on smaller ideas I had in passing about the story.  And I was able to write down a pretty good synopsis of the story.  Granted it's still WAY early in the process and a lot can change, but at least now I have something to come back to if I run out of steam again.  I have a plan, an idea of where to go next.  I may decide I don't like it, I may change it or delete it or add a bunch of new crap to it, but I do have a guideline. 

I thought I was a "pantser" (people who write without an outline, "by the seat of their pants") but I realize I need to at least have some idea of my beginning, middle, and end.  I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who will outline every chapter before I start my first draft, and I think that's ok.  But I definitely think it's smart to have SOME idea of where I want my story to go.  Maybe that's why I've never gotten that far in a ms before, because I've always just started writing with a vague idea or concept.  I think the furthest I've gotten was around 11k before giving up.  I am really hoping I can do it this time.  I want to succeed, I want to have a passion, and I want to have something I can be proud of.  And there's no time like the present to get started on it...