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Getting Stuck and Unstuck Again

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Summary

Writing a book is both exciting and very hard, especially when following an outline feels limiting. The author feels stuck but finds freedom by using a flexible note-taking method called Zettelkasten. This approach helps make progress without pressure, allowing ideas to flow before turning into final writing.

Highlights

From reading On Writing for AP English Language and Rhetoric back in high school to hearing my friends in the RPG industry talk about their process, I had always heard that writing books is hard. But, until I actually had a contract to write one, it did not really land for me.

We have a great outline for this project. I know all the stuff that (at least for now) needs to go in it. And, I know exactly what my responsibility is. I even know, in most cases, what format different entries will take - how we're representing the setting vs. the missions. I have good accountability through regular meetings. I have a clear brief and a generous contract.

And yet, when I sit down to actually write the damn thing, I've felt extremely stuck recently.

I feel like I'm writing marketing copy that is barely indistinguishable from AI slop. I am not, but y'know. It's a feeling.

To outline, we assume that we know in advance what a writing project will look like when it's done. But, we don't!

I am finding that the outline has become my nemesis and, even more importantly, subtly coerces me into trying to write things In Order And One By One, rather than diving into what feels alive for me at a given moment.

Instead of approaching the task as "fill out an outline", which feels impossible and/or boring depending on my mood, I am instead using a Zettelkasten linked structure in a dedicated Obsidian folder to follow my ideas about the setting where it leads.

This method has had two benefits so far. First, it gives me a way to meaningfully make progress in a work session.

Second, it removes the barrier from something being "good enough". By the time a note on the Cartersfield setting goes into my Zettelkasten, it was always worth writing, even if that prose never sees the light of day. In contrast, writing "final" prose (a funny word to use for a first draft, but it still feels that way) feels weighty, like it matters, and like I can't get it wrong. I know none of the collaborators who can see my Google Docs feel that way - this is an entirely internally-generated phenomenon.