Before I was a writer, I was also a photographer, and a potter friend asked me to photograph her work each year. And each year, I had an idea in my head of what the photo should look like. So I set it up and took the photo; we had plenty of time to spare, so after the obligatory photo was done, we decided to just play with different shots. Inevitably, we nixed the original photo, because the shots when I was playing were always better than my original idea.

I’m not a fan of the term pantser; it sounds corny and mildly dismissive. I’ll call it plain old writing, with the minimum effective amount of outlining to hang the story together.

Outlining down to the level of beats to hit in what chapter/scene and who must do what prior to writing constrains what the characters can do to what they must do.

I did that with the first edition of my first book (YA supernatural fantasy), and for me, that resulted in flat, predictable writing. Others fare better than me at that; to each their own.

The barest outlines allows characters to drive scenes.

The outline of my current manuscript is 3 bullets: beginning, middle, end. If I get stuck writing a scene, I might do the same thing, simplify to 3 bullets to clarify for me what will happen.

Embrace thin outlines

I’ve heard minimal outlining cast as a boogeyman, instilling fear in a writer that they would lack the skill to discern if they have meandered or gotten lost in minutia and irrelevancy.

That’s not the advice I would give. I would remind the writer to be mindful of such things and that sometimes character development and richness happens outside of or adjacent to the plot while supporting the plot. I would remind the writer that they need to learn discernment, and they need not rely on a detailed outline or else are doomed to minutia.

If character freedom takes the story in a direction I hadn’t considered, does it improve the story? If it does, I leave it in; if it doesn’t, I take it out. Most of the richest moments in my books are moments that I couldn’t have possibly plotted out, and would not have happened had I plotted.

Plotting allows one to write quickly because they’ve planned everything in advance. Writing quickly, however, doesn’t necessarily lead to a rich, engaging, and satisfying read; nor does not plotting, but not plotting forces the writer to consider a variety of possibilities of what might happen next, which can lead to gems that plotting alone might not have uncovered. Plotting can shortcut the process of thinking; why think if it’s already been plotted out in advance?

Brandon Sanderson has a different set of terms: Gardeners and Architects:

FINALIST: NH Literary Awards, Outstanding Work of Young Adult Fiction

At the crossroads of supernatural and human potential, a mystical world exists in each of us. One anxious teen found it.

“A well-paced novel with tension and mystery throughout.” —Reedsy review.

Learn More

• The paradigm: chapters are folders and scenes are files. Makes it easy to locate what you need to work on.

• Manuscript in binder pane uses an OS list-view style, which we are all familar with.
• Color code scenes/chapters with status (e.g. TODO).
• Apply custom icons (e.g. a horse icon for a scene with a horse) to promote skimmability.
• Move a scene by dragging in the binder.
• Split scene at selection
• Split screen lets you examine 2 scenes side-by-side. Perfect for continuity checking or moving contents between scenes.
• Notes pane lets you attach virtually anything (images, links, text) to a scene (for keeping track of research)
• Snapshots. If you want to rewrite a scene but are afraid of losing what you wrote, take a snapshot, so you never lose what you wrote.
• Snapshot Diff: shows differences between current scene and snapshot in red and green
• Write once, Compile to many: no need for separate docs for Print and ePub. Have as many custom formats as you want, tailored for specific outputs.
• Powerful Layout controls: control virtually any aspect of layout (fonts, margins, recto, verso, text above each page, chapter indents, chapter titles, chapter numbers, pagination, scene dividers (even images for scene dividers)
• Custom CSS for ebooks (for power users)
• Start/Stop speaking text (listen to your manuscript)
• Compile Selection (when working with editors, reading groups, writing coach, you may want to share just a few scenes or chapters)

There’s so much more to love about Scrivener. Those are just a handful of my tops.

For people wanting to deepen their lucid dreaming practice, I recommend dream yoga. Rather than try to describe the practice myself (I am a novice), I will let I will let Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche do the talking:

Here are some examples of things you can try while lucid dreaming:

• To what extent can you control the environment? Can you change a building’s color? Height?
• What degrees of freedom do you have? How high can you jump? Fly? How fast? Can you walk through glass? Walls?
• What is your relationship to bad actors: can you turn them into friends? Can you vanquish them? If you can’t, can you take yourself away?
• How long can you remain lucid?
• Is your reason fully intact?
• Meditate: sit, close your eyes, and just breathe. What happens?
• If you feel the dream fading, ground yourself: touch things, spin around. Does the dream return?
• Find a psychedelic mushroom in your dream. Eat it. What happens?
• Can you leave your physical body? float above it? walk around your bedroom? Float through a window? Can you visit friends? Deceased loved ones?
• Can you ask for teachers? Can you meet your spirit guide? Your Council?
• Can you find the item a friend hid IRL for you to find?
• Can you ask a question about the future and get an answer?
• Can you and a friend share a lucid dream?
• Can you visit other planets? other dimensions?

Dr. Clare Johnson has an extended discussion with David Jay Brown on his lucid dream experiences, including taking psychedelics within a lucid dream:

Learn more:

• Deep Lucid Dreaming with Dr. Clare Johnson
• Lucid Dreaming Experience Magazine
• On Precognitive Dreams

FINALIST: NH Literary Awards, Outstanding Work of Young Adult Fiction

At the crossroads of supernatural and human potential, a mystical world exists in each of us. One anxious teen found it.

“A well-paced novel with tension and mystery throughout.” —Reedsy review.

Learn More

1. Lucid Dreaming Isn’t Sleep or Wakefulness—It’s a New State of Consciousness, Scientists Find, Elizabeth Rayne, Popular Mechanics, 12/13/25
2. Lucid Dreaming: A State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming, Voss, Holzmann, Tuin, Hobson, 09/01/2009

Adopt a holistic perspective

Trust. We are part of a process (some might call this God) and the process wants us to attain our highest good, and our highest good may not be the attainment of our ego’s desires. When we trust, things tend to work out, even if it isn’t in the way we expect. If I don’t achieve my goal, it may be because something better is in process. One could see this as justification; I see it as allowing for good to show up in ways I don’t expect.

Better might be bad. Sometimes we need to break down to break through. Breakdown is like a nuclear blast that strips away poor behaviors that encrust onto us. I wouldn’t wish breakdown on my worst enemy; approached with a proper perspective, we can come out of breakdown better for it.

God wants us to be rich?

Prosperity theology or gospel is based on the notion that with piety comes prosperity. Approach with caution. Yes, the process wants us to attain our highest good, but our highest good may not be the attainment of our ego’s desires. There is a perversion of Prosperity theology that leaves of the second part; it is a debasing of a higher notion to justify greed and judgmentality (judging one’s worth by their wealth).

Returning to, “I need to quickly acquire a few million dollars”, question the motive. Need sounds like ego. Yes, I have used and will continue to use psi to make money, and personal enrichment may not be in my highest interests, so I approach the matter from that perspective. Is the attainment of wealth in my highest good?

I have had chronic arm pain for 25 years, and nonstop head pain for 4 years. While I have used psi to help navigate the healthcare system for the past decade, my arm pain is still there, and got much worse with the addition of head pain. So there are limits.

An approach

I’m a precognitive dreamer, so my approach would be using dreams.

Not everyone is a precognitive dreamer. Are you? One way to find out is to ask a question at bedtime, like, “tell me something I don’t already know about tomorrow,” and write down your dreams when you wake. Try for a week.

If you have success with that, congratulations! You are a precognitive dreamer. You can use dreams to tackle your project goal.

Over several nights ask one question a night…
“How will this project look in a year?”
“How will I feel about this project in a year?”

If those point to success, dig in …
“Tell me about the funding sources”

Don’t expect names or faces; instead, pore over symbolism.

Among other things, psi is a way to peer into the future, so that we can prepare and act accordingly now. Can psi be used to make money? Sure. Can it be used to attain every goal? A resounding no. Not every goal is meant to be … wouldn’t you rather know that now than after you’ve poured your heart and soul into it?

FINALIST: NH Literary Awards, Outstanding Work of Young Adult Fiction

At the crossroads of supernatural and human potential, a mystical world exists in each of us. One anxious teen found it.

“A well-paced novel with tension and mystery throughout.” —Reedsy review.

Learn More

At the time of writing this, I’m about half-way through a six month neurofeedback program at Brain Training of New England, and my surprising results-to-date have me full of questions.

Before starting the program, I filled out an intake questionnaire which asked questions like rate your anxiety level on a scale of 0-10. I re-took the questionnaire at three months, having forgotten my original answers, and learned that my self-reported anxiety and depression have disappeared.

At first, I thought maybe they caught me on a good day. But, upon reflection, I agreed: my anxiety and depression, albeit previously mild, was gone.

Anxiety sucks. I’ve spent decades doing therapy and personal growth to overcome my anxiety: positive thinking, brutal introspection, mindfulness, New Age-style affirmations, trying on new behaviors, etc. In short, overcoming habitual anxiety has been hard work, and with modest (read: little to no) result. Even though it was not the goal, a side benefit of all this otherwise impotent introspection and effort has been a deepening of my compassion toward others who are also struggling; but, alas, I was still anxious. So, after two decades of positive thinking yielding no result—for which positive thinkers have told me, with neither evidence nor irony, I just need to do more positive thinking—I turned to pharmacology. While medicine has proven to be a reasonably effective bandage to manage my anxiety, it is no cure, and who knows what subtle downsides pills may present? Now, and quite by accident, I find out there is something that works in months, not years or decades—or, and I hate to say this, never—and is effortless: neurofeedback.

Neurofeedback has me questioning what traits characterize my personality and what traits are symptomatic of brainwave dysregulation.

For instance, one habit of mine is that in an awkward moment I may try to disarm the awkwardness by telling a corny joke. Is that part of my personality, or is it a maladaptation? When, using my post-neurofeeback brain, I regard it as the latter, a coping mechanism, and, when I ask myself if that response still suits me, I’m inclined to say no. Behaviors that used to be compulsions are now choices, and behaviors I might no longer choose. And with that, awkwardness-disarming-jokes begin to fade from my favored traits, or at least this is how it feels as I write this.

Might it be that some of these behaviors I’ve come to think of as my personality aren’t? Instead, are they indicators of a dysregulated brain? Is my inability to regulate my brain on my own, without electrodes, a personality defect? A weakness of will? Surely, no. But, isn’t that a popular position? But I digress. Since my brain is, after all, mine, must everything my brain has me be and do constitute my personality?

And might it be that all of that introspective effort I’ve been putting in to curing my anxiety—while making me more compassionate—been like throwing a basketball at a hoop with no backboard? Is it naïve to expect even the most robust practice of reflection to substantially reduce habitual anxiety? Are affirmations effectively useless against a dysregulated brain?

Neurofeedback now has me questioning what even is personality? If a habitual undesirable behavior can be eliminated via brainwave regulation, was it ever part of my personality? What other behaviors of mine are merely reactivity? With a brain now better regulated by neurofeedback, anxiety dissolving and behaviors changing, will I show up to others as a different person? To the extent that my reactive behaviors mirrored and affirmed those same reactive behaviors in others, will my new, less-reactive self seem like a threat to them? Will they accept the new me, or will they want back the old, reactive me?

My YA fantasy novel Super Human’s main character, Will Freeman, is anxious … a classic example of the literary self-insert. One of my readers asked: why is Will anxious? I didn’t have an answer.

I don’t recall circumstances about my growing up that could have caused my anxiety. My neurofeedback provider mentioned evidence of past TBI in my brain map which could lead to emotional dysregulation. I hit my head as an infant; the dent on my forehead marks the event. Is the answer as simple as a bump on the head? Fears can be inherited biologically ¹; my mother was anxious. Is my anxiety inherited? Could Will Freeman be anxious because his mother was anxious? Or because he once bumped his head?

FINALIST: NH Literary Awards, Outstanding Work of Young Adult Fiction

At the crossroads of supernatural and human potential, a mystical world exists in each of us. One anxious teen found it.

“A well-paced novel with tension and mystery throughout.” —Reedsy review.

Learn More

1. Fearful Memories Passed Down to Mouse Descendants, Scientific American, December, 2013