I finished my first chapter yesterday. Unfortunately, I realized that I had to jam two scenes together, because each one really was just half of a whole. Which meant that I was lacking an ending scene for Chapter 2.
Then I realized that the whole scene worked better to end Chapter 2 anyway. So I started today off by moving it to Chapter 2, and writing another ending scene to Chapter 1. Which was okay, because I was missing something to bridge the two chapters together anyway. 😛 And then I ended up moving a couple of scenes around in Chapter 1 to make it flow better. Which I know I shouldn’t be doing, I should be writing, not moving scenes around. But copy and paste is quick, and I can’t walk away from something without fixing it.
In the end, I just had to realize that my outline was just that. An outline. A guideline for writing the novel itself.
So now I have chapter two a quarter done before I’ve even started writing it. And Chapter 1 is much better, smoother, self contained, and metes out a better flow of information to the reader about the characters and setting than it did in the outline.