Standing Still in Circles?

The practice of nearly-daily writing is sparking my need to write more than this blog, as I hoped it would, but at the moment that need is pushing me around in circles.  I feel like a writer running around the house looking for a pen.  Historical?  Futuristic?  Romance?  Mystery?  What, exactly, do I need to write?

I was talking to a dear writer-friend today, Celeste Bradley, who is always so wonderful about sharing experiences and thoughts with other writers, when a light bulb went off.  Granted, it was a tiny LED, but still a light bulb.  Instead of tackling the whole story at once, as I've been doing, I need to treat this like learning to ski.

For those who haven't tried downhill skiing, it isn't the easiest thing to learn.  Well, going downhill isn't difficult, it's the stopping before you crash or hit the bottom that's the tough part.  When I was living in Alaska back in the wild pipeline days, I worked at Alyeska Resort as a lift operator.  In the summer, I loaded older visitors onto the chair so they could ride up to enjoy the view, and all I needed was muscular arms, which I had.  But when winter came around, I was told I had to learn to ski if I wanted to keep my job.  (There weren't a lot of jobs in Girdwood, Alaska, at that time, so I couldn't afford to throw one away.)

Strapping on skis and going for it--tackling the experience all at once--was hard.  And painful.  To make it worse, all the "kids" I was supervising laughed every time I tried to get off the lift and crashed.  But one young man was nice enough to explain the secret to me.  He skied in front of me and told me to stare at the back of his skis.  All I had to do was follow him one foot of snow at a time (the equivalent of one step at a time).  Pretty soon, we were zipping down the mountain.  (I will admit, it was a little humiliating when we first started and he was skiing in front of me backwards, drinking a beer, and holding the tips of my skis together as I mastered the snow-plow stop. The show-off.)

So here's my plan: I will write out the steps of a story, bullet-list fashion, and then follow those steps.  If I do that, I should even be able to rearrange the bullets before I start and know where I'm going.  For a Pantser (one who writes without an outline, or "by the seat of my pants"), this is a scary thought.  If I know what's going to happen, will I still be able to write?  Or will I just lose interest?  If I can tackle it one bullet at a time...

I'll let you know how it goes.  How do you approach writing?  Do you dive in, outline, discuss it with others?  If you know how your story/book is going to end, does it spoil the fun?

As for the photo, I can't find any of me working at the ski resort, but this is from the same time.  I was wicked with an ax.