Story Junkie or Prepared Novelist?

I normally post a new entry to the blog on Sundays. Every now and then, inspiration will hit and I'll start working on it early, but most weeks I grab a cup of my favorite coffee and I sit down and work on my post after church services, and it's normally published by early afternoon.

Yesterday, however, a pressing deadline loomed and I spent most of the day working on a detailed cover design form for a book I haven't yet written. In fact, I sold said book based on a paragraph of information. Normally, this cover design part of the publishing process comes well after the book is written, so providing details about location, tone, characters and key elements of the novel required quite a bit of brain stamina.

The only thing I had to depend on was the paragraph I'd written, so I read it again and again...until solid characters and threads of the story began to emerge. I browsed stock photos for inspiration on my hero and heroine, and I scrolled through Amazon's Kindle store for covers that jumped out at me. It took most of the day to fill out the one-page form of questions that publishers require in order to create a cover that will set the tone of my book and appeal to my readers.

I'm normally very much a seat-of-the-pants writer. I'll see someone at the bank, or overhear a conversation at the store...and a new book begins to emerge inside my head. I'll spend several days making general notes, designing a few key scenes that sum up my story and characters, and creating a complete pitch that might sell the book. If it does, I write the first three chapters before I even create character sketches for the main players. Then...something breaks loose.

I become a bit like a junkie out on a bender: I brew up some coffee, stock the pantry with healthy snacks, get out my supply of Writer Clothes (a couple of oversized tees, sweat pants and a scrunchie for my hair), and I'm OFF! I hardly come up for air again for the next couple of months. Friends know that this is not a time for social calls. She's writing.

It's exhilarating! A friend of mine calls it "Sandie's All-or-Nothing Method," and I suppose she's right. There's no balance whatsoever. I'm lost. In my story and my characters, in the world I've created around them, and in delivering satisfaction to my readers. Utterly lost, swimming around in my book until my brain is pruny with delight.

But yesterday, after spending so much time spinning a world around my simple little paragraph, I actually dreamed about the characters and their story last night. Bear in mind that I am currently working on another book, and I'm not ready to write this new one yet. Despite the fact that it is calling to me like a church bell clanging at the back door.

This morning, it occurs to me that I might want to hold on to that little blank form and pull it out before my next project; maybe spend a day filling it out and getting to know my characters and their world before I ever start to write. Maybe characters don't have to unfold before my eyes to surprise and delight me. Maybe there's something to this idea of carefully crafting them before they ever hit the page.

Have I been doing it WRONG all this time?!

Yesterday may have been a little like rehab for my writer self. I started to question my behavior as a writer, evaluate my process. Somehow, I learned that there are other ways to go about this writing thing, more organized and thoughtful ways that might bring out a different kind of creativity.

But would I still spontaneously fall in love with my heroes, revel in my heroines with complete surprised abandon? Would it be as much FUN?

What do you think? When you approach a large and important project, do you dive in like a junkie with your whole heart and every spare moment until it's complete? Or do you slowly prepare and carefully step into it?