In corridors full of tear gas
I’ve been catching bits and pieces of a movie in my head lately, a movie that I know is the third 47 Echo book. I say “I’ve been catching bits and pieces,” because that’s very much what it’s like.
You know how you turn on your TV and keep catching a movie you want to see about halfway through? Then do the same thing again the next week, only catching another bit, this one much earlier than the bit you watched? That’s kind of how this book is coming together for me. The ideas are coming, but they’re coming out of sequence, jumbled, mashed together in the wrong places. I know where I’m going, eventually, but the way to get there is covered in missing steps, time jumps, and voyages back to before the beginning.
This might sound like a damned inefficient way to write a book, and it probably is — but I’ve used the formula before to varying degrees of success. I might be getting the ideas out of sequence in a jumbled mess, but I’m getting to the point that at least I know where they go. I can slot them into a sort of vague outline in my head, and once I get enough mileposts down, I can plot my course from one to the next.
So, does this sound completely insane? Or have you found yourself working in a similar manner?
47 Echo 
Sounds completely normal to me. Kinda how I’ve always written.
With the exception of a few short stories, I don’t think I’ve ever worked in order. I’ve never really worked with outlines, either. I tend to jump around, finding that if I write a scene later in the story that interests me that it all comes together and new things become apparent. Then, when I go back to earlier things, I don’t just have a vague idea where things are going–I have specifics I can play on. The result: it looks like I know how to foreshadow and tie things together.