Writing by the seat of your pants sometimes leaves you naked! : )

I've been working on my handout for the plot workshop Linnea and I are giving together next week at Archon, and it's fascinating to me how differently we approach writing. Of course, in writing up how I usually work, I can see why I routinely get stuck at various points in a book.

I rely on intuition to write. I don't plot or plan anything out ahead of time...well, not much, anyway. I just listen and watch, much the way Stephen King describes in On Writing. I don't do it that way because that's how he does it but because that's the way it works for me. It's like catching only bits and pieces of a movie and trying to puzzle out what must have happened in between this part and the last little portion you saw.

It works for me because I enjoy finding out what's going on just like a reader. However, I frequently find myself in situations where I don't know what happens to make that next leap. Over the years, I've learned it's usually because I'm missing something. Some major fact I didn't know, some tension-elevating feature that I bypassed accidentally. For example, in The Silver Spoon, it was that if you challenge the leader of this particular group of aliens and you win...you're the new leader. Boom. When that clicked into place, it was HUGE. Changed everything and pulled the story tight again.

And for whatever reason, I find this stumbling block always occurs right near a threshold, or change in the character/situation. I follow Christopher Vogler's idea of the Writer's Journey when I need help and I always find myself referring to that book at the exact same places in every single book--as I'm transitioning into Act II and then again into Act III.

With my current WIP, that's exactly where I'm floundering again. I know some things, but just not the full picture. And it's very frustrating when I want to move forward. I know the hero in my story has some big dangerous mission in the offing or he has some special destiny or both, but I have no idea what it is. Not yet. And though technically I don't need to know at this exact moment--nobody's talking about it or anything--his role/mission is significant in how it causes at least one major character (and possibly more) behaves toward my heroine. Arrgh.
It will work out--I have faith and it always does. But whew, talk about grumpiness and frustration until we get there.

Anyone else out there write this way? If so, what do you do to get past it? I know L would tell me that I've fallen off the conflict line and she's absolutely right. But how to get back on and get us on the right track again...that's the tricky part.