Five ways my book plans collapse upon contact with the real world - A Metaphorical Disaster Movie

At this stage, I've written a lot of novels, and started even more than that. Every single one started with a plan of some form - sometimes a couple of ideas scribbled on a pad, other times thousands of words of ideas, followed by a chapter-by-chapter outline and then individual scene breakdowns within those chapters.

But either way, the plans always come a little unstuck when exposed to the writing process. As I've been doing a lot of first drafting lately, so spending a heaping helping of my time dealing with plans not corresponding to prose.

So, to inform and reassure anyone in a similar place, I've broken my Plan Vs Reality problems into an internet-friendly Buzzfeed-style five-point list. Yes, only a thin membrane separates some of these feelings, but I've spent enough time staring at my plans in despair to know they're all distinct. If you've experienced all five of these, you can award yourself a prize when you reach the bottom!

I finally read Age of Apocalypse - Was it like a smaller Secret Wars?

Just recently, I crossed another item off my list of stories to read on Marvel Unlimited - I rattled through the X-Men: Age of Apocalypse mini-epic. I don't know what spurred me to go for that precise one, but after the fact, it seems topical - after all, Marvel are about to pull an Age of Apocalypse on their entire universe with the mega-massive Secret Wars event.

That's before we get to next year's X-Men: Apocalypse movie, which probably won't adapt this storyline but might, and recent DC event Convergence, also an AoA-style move, albeit shorter.

So it seemed a good time to talk about it, maybe discuss how these new events are using (or abusing) the legacy of Age of Apocalypse. Spoilers follow for twenty-year-old X-Men comics!