Monteleone's Guide Chapter 6: the Plot

I must confess the idea of plotting, planning, scheduling taunts me. I find myself teetering, doubting, faltering in an unknown mysterious fog where my myopic eyes cannot see anything.

The first small novel--or long short-story--I wrote had not plot at all. I was living by myself in Tijuana. I had no friends, no money, and a not so demanding small job. I just came back from work and wrote 1 or 2 pages about my professional experiences, with a character which was humorous--that's what I thought, at least. And I just kept writing and writing until I completed more than a hundred pages. I never stopped to think about the plot, and so at the end I had a lot of loosely related stories, which I called "my book".

Monteleone says about this kind of literature: "Please, if you were trying to write that particular 'story,' don't. These are written thousands of times a year..."
Some of them manage to get published, and get mentions for their " 'dazzling prose' or 'iconoclastic style,' but rarely (try never) for their riveting storytelling."

Now I have to see my psychoanalyst, and will tell him about my issues with plotting.