Yeah, I'm An Organic Writer

As usual, I'm, oh, I don't know, 170 posts or so behind with my blog reading. But I'm going to be jumping ahead to keep up with Procrastinating Writers because blogger Jennifer Blanchard is doing posts on preparing for National Novel Writing Month. I don't take part in National Novel Writing Month anymore because 1. In the best of all possible worlds I'm supposed to be writing all the time, anyway, so I shouldn't need a NaNoWriMo, now, should I? and 2. In the world I actually live in, I only write part-time and National Novel Writing Month can only lead to angst and suffering that I will feel compelled to tell you all about.

I want to read Blanchard's posts, though, because I figure preparing for a writing orgy can't be that different from preparing to write anything.

In her post The 5 Things You Absolutely Must Know About Your NaNo Novel Before You Start Writing Blanchard says, "There’s a lot of back-and-forth arguments between writers with regard to the story planning process. Some writers say planning everything out is the only way to go, while others say they can only write “organically” and allow the story to unfold as they write (these people are known as “pantsers”)."

I thought, Oh, thank goodness. There is a word for what I am..."organic." We're just going to pretend we didn't see the other word "pantser." I am an organic writer. I do not like being an organic writer. I want to be a planning writer. However, I believe in being happy with what you have in any particular moment, and right now in this moment I am quite happy to think of myself as organic.