Sorry if you clicked over to find yet another post on the whole plotting vs pantzing debate. This post does not involve an intricate plotting system using Play-doh, pennies, and popsicle sticks that I invented to craft the perfect novel (even though I tried with no success).

But I am a plotter through and through. I outline. I take notes. I dream. And my creativity is at its best when I have an idea of where I am going. So, why didn’t I apply plotting  to real life? I must have had a lapse of judgement or maybe it was the cold, I don’t know.

We took the kids skiing this past week to a mountain we’d never skied before. I’m so used to going to a mountain that I know, arriving at the top, and choosing a random path.

Well, I hadn’t skied with my youngest cutie son in a while, so I mistakenly trusted my husband’s judgement about taking the chairlift to the top of the mountain on the first run. And, I didn’t plan.

Wise Hubbie:  “Why don’t we take a look at the trail map before we go down.”

Oh so foolish me: “Nah, we’ll just take a green (easy trail). No problem.”

I decided to take a trail “by the seat of my pants”. I mean, the trail was marked with a green circle. It should have stayed green the whole way down!

Part way down, the green changed to a blue square – a slightly steeper, harder trail not meant for beginners. I cheered my son on and then watched as his careful snowplowing and carving turned to sheer panic and he lost all control.

Thank God there were no trees. His skis slammed into a snowbank, his ski boots popped out, and he completed a flip worthy of Gold medalist Shaun White (almost). Then, he landed face down in the icy snow.

Tramautized and crying, it then took him an hour to get down the slopes.

Lesson learned. I’m sticking to plotting.

Do you find that how you approach your writing is a carry-over from how your approach life? Are you a plotter or a pantzer?

(My son is fine. A few scratches, but no emotional scars.)