I loved this quote that came in the morning's mail from "The Written Word."
"Don't make an outline; make a laundry list. The very idea of an outline suggests rigidity; items on a laundry list can be shifted around. Don't lock the structure in too early. A piece of writing should evolve as it's being written." --John Berendt
Ever since I was a kid in grade school, people have been telling me I should make outlines, and I never 
did. It was simply too confining. So I refused, but didn't say it out loud. When we had to write essays and were required to turn in the outline with them, I wrote the essay first, and then wrote the outline to fit.
I was never good at putting things on index cards either, because I tended to write too much on each one. If we had to turn those in, I again did them after the fact.
The teachers never knew the difference, and in fact gave me good grades on those outlines. How silly.
Because I write first, then move things around, having a computer / word processor has helped tremendously. Back when it was all on paper, I had circles around things, lines, and arrows pointing everywhere – and I did a LOT of re-writing.
Now it's so simple to pick up a paragraph and put it somewhere else. Like many writers, I sometimes find that the most important point of the whole piece is sitting down there in the conclusion when it belongs in the first paragraph. It's also simple to get out the thesaurus and replace a word that could be just a little bit more concise.
So – if you're one who refuses to write outlines, stop feeling like you "should." John Berendt and I don't use them either.
Who is John Berendt? He's an American author, best known for writing the best-selling non-fiction book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
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