I was rereading my first story, Building a Better Past, seeing if that would kickstart my way into the sequel, when I got to a scene in the middle of chapter 11 and it reminded me of process I went through then (and still do to a degree).
I had a rough outline of where I wanted to go and knew I needed some minor characters to help add depth, so I came up with the three amigas — Jenny, Jodi and Felicia. They were intended to be semi-important, but still disposable if the need arose. As I was narrowing the story down I felt the need to add some drama to everyone's lives, so I added a new character, Alex, who took Jenny on a date, another car lost control and plowed the passenger side of Alex's car. There was more story after that point, but it doesn't matter because it was never written and I don't remember it now.
So I wrote the first scene in chapter 11 basically as it sits now. Then I wrote the funeral scene where we learn what happened. And not a word more would come. I had an outline to work from but I couldn't seem to write to fit it. I tried just picking interesting scenes from the rest of the story and jotting notes on them. Nope.
To that point things had been flowing smoothly, but I sat looking at it, unable to figure out what to write, for almost as long as it had taken to write the first part. Finally I was a bit desperate — this was my first try at writing, so also my first writer's block — and decided to see what would happen if Jenny lived. That, apparently, was the ransom she was looking for because the story started flowing again, except it didn't go where I'd originally intended. I kind of liked where it went, though, so I went back and added a scene here, tweaked something there, to pull her further into the story.
Since then I've realized that, for me, outlines are a good place to start, but the characters are going to tell the story where to go, not me. As long as I let them do their thing, they'll leave my muse alone so I only have to worry about the normal interruptions in life keeping me from writing.
