I love a good outline and can't really imagine writing anything above 1000 words without one. Getting the outline into shape really feels like breaking the back

I love a good outline and can't really imagine writing anything above 1000 words without one. Getting the outline into shape really feels like breaking the back of any piece - after that it's just filling in the gaps. Something I realised much too late was how delaying the move to the keyboard was a useful strategy. Now I mostly start with pen and paper, sometimes with a mind map if I really need to organise my thoughts, and only hit the PC once I have a pretty firm idea of what I'm going to say. I've even done first drafts in longhand, which feels like double handling at first, but there's something about that added filter of transposing from paper to computer that helps you reassess objectively what it is that you're writing.