It's leaving space for discovery while also leaning in to my natural laziness and not doing a bunch of work I might have to throw out (which is why I finally gave in to outlining in the first place-it's easier than writing 6 drafts and having none of them work, which was the previous method 🫠)

My current one is mostly complete and about 4000 words, but my outlines also tend to be kind of voicey? I try to match the tone of the book to the outline, and sometimes include bits of dialogue if I know it goes there. It's like a sketch of the feel of the chapter, not just the events, ideally

I tend to do it in two stages--I do big beats, then break the first half down into chapters. Once I get what I've outlined written I sort of reassess the back half and start breaking it into more detail.

Call me a bad prison abolitionist. So long as the carceral state exists, the powerful should be subjected to it.

"You can't un-invent AI!" We can't un-invent asbestos either. That doesn't mean we have to use it.

Huzzah!