Back from Grant's, who never showed up. He obviously forgot or thinks he gave me a different time than he gave me, but thankfully, I wrote down that the time was at one, so I know I'm not in error. Hopefully, he'll get home soon and I'll go back there, because he leaves town tomorrow through Monday night and I've got to have the rest of my rehearsal tracks.
Re outline: That's what's so fascinating is that every writer has their own "thing" that works for them. For me an outline, no matter how comforting it might be (and believe me, there are times when it would be comforting), is like having blinders on. I never look past it and so, again, for me, it is not only not freeing, it's anti-freeing. But again, that's only for the books - I do think an outline is necessary for screenplays and plays, even if it's barebones going a to b to c, etc.
I would say that it's virtually impossible to see a non-fiction book without an outline or proposal and sample chapters. Pogue is right, though - they won't buy a work of fiction in advance of it being written unless they have a proposal of some sort (unless you're Dan Brown or Stephen King or you have an established relationship with a major publisher).
Unfortunately, the days of the one-line pitch are not gone - two movie ideas sold in the last three weeks, one for seven figures, and they were just that - a paragraph with the basic idea. And, I might add, they were horrible.
