I finally made it back into the gym today. I was in introvert-mode and didn't say a word to anyone the whole time I was there. No eye-contact, no conversation. Felt decidedly anti-social. But I was bored with sitting at home, and push-starting this locomotive of a novel is turning out to be more difficult than I'd thought it would be, and I felt like getting out of the house. But I didn't want to be sociable. I have too much of that at work where I have to be sociable.

So the novel is going slowly, with me feeling out what needs to be said and what's going to happen next. I do know from past experience that once I get a couple of chapters in it will start rolling much more easily, so I'm trying not to get stressed or discouraged about the slow start I'm having. At least I am writing again and what I've managed to write so far doesn't suck too badly. I have a short work week this week since my days off got changed, so on my weekend I'm going to try and get the first few chapters at least kinda-sorta outlined. I have a very rough and vague outline for the whole book, but I want to flesh that out a bit more--at least for the next several chapters. Yes, I outline novels. I need the structure and the reminder of what direction I wanted to go when I'm doing a long work. I don't outline short fiction though--just a jotted note here or there at the most. But my first book came in at 160K words, with about 6 different plot threads, and this one is going to at least as big and complicated, soooo outline is needed. (Not to mention that if the planets somehow aligned correctly and some publisher wanted to buy the first one, they'd probably want to see at least the outline of the next one, since it is a series.)

So I'm in this whole antisocial mode, and have pretty much decided that sometimes people are simply not worth the trouble.