Writer’s block

Well, I got started on the introductory chapter of my book a few days ago and that’s all the farther I’ve gotten.  I have writer’s block.  The outline stares at me harshly from the stack of papers it sits perched atop on my kitchen table.  I can’t think of the words to use.  I have this outline stuck on paper that won’t come to life the way it did when I wrote it out.  This blog is my way of overcoming a lot of things and sharing information with others about climbing.  My book will do the same, hopefully, once I get over this writer’s block.

I’ve never done well with outlines.  They feel so restrictive.  Limiting.  When I give a public speech, I speak.  I don’t use an outline.  I have a few notes jotted down here and there on a piece of paper, some in order, some not so much, but nothing so formal as an actual outline!  In some ways I feel like writing an outline for this book was a mistake.  I know you’re supposed to begin with an outline to be “proper” and not wing it.  I’m good at “winging it”, though.  That’s my forte!  Thoughts come to my mind freely and the sentences flow as I type as fast as I can to keep up with what comes to mind.  That all works out so much better than this contrived outline business.  Outlines are stuffy.  They make me feel claustrophobic, as if I’m bound by walls that are ever closing in on my thoughts and chasing away my creativity with darkness, choking the life out of me…

I’m not sure whether or not to scrap the outline and just write, or to try to stick to the outline and write what comes to me first, and then rearrange it accordingly when more of the various chapters and passages are written down.  All I really know is that I’m stuck.