Patio yesterday, in late afternoon (the little green chair is Annie’s). Belle just sits next to her, hoping she will drop bits of snacks.

There is a question that writers are asked often, ‘Are you a planner or a pantser?’

Neither JoHn (a.k.a., The Nearly Perfect Husband), nor I, had ever heard this question before he got an agent, and then a publisher, and was writing his first of his – initially – three book series.*

One day, he came back to my office (Belle buzzed him in) and he was all excited because he had just been asked the ‘planner pantser’ question…

I should mention that we can both get stupid-excited when coming across certain bits of new information.

So he said something like, “Kathy asked me this question and I was all confused but it’s a great question…”

And then he went on to tell me that a ‘planner’ is exactly what it sounds like. If you are a ‘planner’, in your writing, you probably have a multi-level outline of the story, the character arcs, the backgrounds of your characters, notes on research you need to do, a schedule on how many pages you need to finish in a month/week/day/hour/minute/nanosecond…

You get the picture.

But if you are a pantser, you are writing by the seat of your pants.

Stuff just comes to you and you write it down. Maybe it flows out of you, or comes in dribs and drabs. Maybe you know the title or maybe you don’t. Also, you might be writing anything from historical fiction to an encyclopedia, but you probably won’t know until you’re done, so there’s no need to stress.

So.

JoHn is a planner. He currently has, and I am not kidding because I just asked him, a fifty-eight page outline for his next book which will be about 320 pages. I am a pantser. I could not write an outline – or even give you a vaguely accurate description – in advance of what might, eventually, be a 574 word blog post without wanting to stab myself in the eye with a fork.

And guess what? We don’t just write this way, we live this way.

Case in point:

This morning, my Nearly Perfect Husband brought me coffee in bed (awwww), and when he sat down at the foot of said bed (he had his mug too), he announced that he was very busy and important and couldn’t stay because he had a ‘big list’ for today.

I have learned that you cannot stop this man when he wants to tell you his list, so I stayed quiet.

He said, “Okay I have to mow the lawn…”

And then I said, “Want to take a walk?”

And he reflexively said, “No because I have to mow the lawn today and also I have to do <insert a whole bunch of silly things that add up to  ‘make a living’ here >…”

And then his brain broke.

He stared at a dot high on the wall above my head and I could practically see him physically going through the checklists and outlines for his day.

Suddenly he said, “Okay, we can go for a walk. At 7:45.”

Then he looked over at the clock on his nightstand, and back at me, and said, “It’s ten past seven now. I have to go so I can be ready.”

Then he got up and walked into the closet (guaranteed ‘enter closet’ was on his list). He began to mumble something about his shorts and that he couldn’t find his shorts and maybe he washed them already. Then he walked out of the closet and past me and said, “These are my indoor black shorts” referring, I’m guessing, to the ones he was wearing at that moment, which were clearly meant only for interior spaces.

And then he left the bedroom.

About thirty minutes later, I tossed my covers back, pulled on some black stretchy pants from the drawer beside me and then found an acceptable walking shirt. I brushed my teeth and splashed water on my face and made the bed (kind of) and headed down to John waiting by the door with Belle’s leash.

Then I tried to do three chores on the way to the road (little bit of weeding, little bit of deadheading, and moving the big bucket from where it doesn’t live to where it does). This made JoHn sigh.

When we hit the road I asked him if he was still wearing his indoor shorts (as the shorts he was wearing were exactly the same as the ones he was wearing when he left the bedroom). And he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “No! These are my outdoor shorts and you washed them for me. Thank you!”

And I thought, ‘Really? I washed them? I didn’t even know I did that.’

When did I do that?

Also, this entire post was supposed to be about hydrangeas.

Thanks for readin’.

*John’s third book in the Gus Wheeler series comes out in two weeks (July 29th), and he has already gotten another three book deal to continue the series. The third book (the one coming) has really great early reviews on places like Good Reads and this is very exciting for us all :))

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