Every piece of writing advice ever swirled around my head this past week. Every story and article and essay I’ve read. Every movie and show I’ve watched. Every song, every conversation, every moment.

It’s terrible.

Maybe this is all a sign that I’m ready to stop getting ready and start getting started.

I’ve worked hard to pay attention to fleeting ideas and write them down as they pertain to my writing.

On my desk are hundreds of post-it notes, each with a scratch of thought, a word, an image, a question.

My brain is 99% fleeting thoughts.

I spent the last few weeks trying to create a sense of story, getting to know the players. This last week I stepped back and thought about structure, even without a clear idea of an entirety of story or the entirety of my major characters. It was a study in necessary components and it unearthed possibilities.

For the next two weeks, I’ll write an outline, putting together all the advice, all the half-thoughts, the fleeting moments, the bits of scenes, the structure. All the work threaded on, bolstered, rearranged, re-oriented, set aside if needed.

The outline is the wire frame, strong enough from which to hang the art, flexible enough to allow for adjustments and also for sketchy metaphors.

Then I dive in.

I still have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m sure cramming for it as much as I can.