Not at all. Lots of people write as it comes and then put it in order later.

Thanks, Amy.

I almost never do that anymore, but I used to all the time -- a scene would come and I'd write it without knowing where it would go. Most of the building blocks for Pictures of Us were written that way, longhand, on yellow legal tablets, twelve or thirteen years before I actually outlined a plot and sold it.

The only thing I can write that freely anymore is fanfic. Not sure why.

Edited for an important left-out word.

I can't write longhand anymore, the arthritis has gotten too bad.

My hand is in pain a lot with the long hand, but my brain works better that way. Blank Word pages freak my brain out.

hey, sj, I would recommend looking at Scrivener, which has an extended free promo for NaNoWriMo. It makes it easy to do a scene at a time and then put them in order/put placeholders/etc. I just started using it, but am enjoying it a lot.

Debet. I have scrivener but never quite figured out how to use it.

I went through the Tutorial, and that helped. I don't have the hang of using every feature properly, but I've been using it to write my novel, and it's nice.

I need to do the tutorial. I did one character profile on it which I liked but then couldn't figure out how to do another one.

All of my notes/brainstorming is still done on legal pads longhand, but I can't write actual scenes that way anymore. My hands hurt if I try.

I would love to try Scrivener but I'm afraid it will become a time-waster where I'm testing bells and whistles instead of actually writing, which is something I would totally do.