Revitilized

So I've taken a few weeks off of anything writing related, well the creation of words that is. Just this week, I started to get back into swing of things and I've found it difficult going. Mainly because I thought I would have the excitement to edit my most recent work in progress, but that hasn't happened yet. So I tried my hand at something that I've never attempted before, outlining a new novel. This started off well enough, but realized that outlines don't work for me.

Frustrated, I turned to querytracker.net asking the question, "Who uses outlines and what are some of the ways you do so?" (Or something of that sort. I don't remember the exact wording now, but you get the point.)

So a poster on their mentioned Randy Ingermanson's "Snowflake Method." (You can find the information on it here:http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php) I've heard of it before back in the college days, so I decided to give it a shot. See if it could help give my muse a kick in the butt.

Well what do you think happened? It helped a little bit, in that I have now done Steps 1 and 2 for three different novels that I'm bouncing around in my head. This might seem like a problem, but for me it's a revelation. Two of these ideas I've had started a bit of already, one was the above mentioned outline, but another one, the one that seems most fun currently came up by messing around with this method. I'll see how it progresses, I might even try to use this on my Work in Progress in a sort of backwards method.

So how many of you have heard about this method before now? Probably many have heard of it, but few have actually tried it. Maybe I'm wrong... So I thought I would announce that I think I might have my mojo coming back. Still only writing 30 minutes a day right now about half way to where I was before my break, but I'll get there soon enough, I'm sure of it.

So what methods do you use when starting a new project? Any tips or experience with this method I mentioned? Am I being dumb for dabbling with so many projects at once?

Only time will tell.