To plan or not to plan--(was this already a blog title?)

I have written about this issue before but every time I do I bring in another element that someone might find of use in their own process. I started two books recently and after fifteen pages I settled on one to work on. It was the easier of the two since most of the characters were already developed in previous books. No, this is not meant to be a sequel. In any case I ended up spending a lot of time planning out what I had in mind and where I wanted the story to go. Guess what happened?

Now, thirty pages in I'm bored. I'm hurrying to get to the part that I haven't planned with hopes that the story will take me on a magical mystical tour and not flatten out into something known. This little experiment has shown me why I cannot plan or plot.

And so I am working on the other story, the one I have no clue about. At the moment my main character is surprising me at every turn.

I know a lot of people plan and outline their novels. I am in awe of them. If I did that I wouldn't write. When I write I feel like I'm reading a book. The story unfolds in front of me in mysterious ways and NEVER goes in the direction I expect. At this point I'm thinking of starting the first book over at a point in the future beyond the planning stage. I can always add backstory if it's necessary. That way I won't know what's going to happen next! Because if I'm bored won't the reader be bored?

I would love to hear how all of you write...and what works and what doesn't. Please leave me a comment if you can--I've had several complaints that it's hard to do this! Not sure why.

Thanks for reading!!!