Plotter or Pantser?

This post originally appeared on my blog in June 2009. I've been sick with a stomach bug and couldn't find the time to write a blog post for today. Hope you enjoy...

I had a totally different post written for today, but something happened that made me want to write about it. On one of the loops I’m on a discussion turned to plotting and flying by the seat of your pants – aka pantser. One person really irked me. She gave great detail why she’s a plotter (all valid I must say), but then she closed with. “I’ve come to realize that plotters are professionals and pantser's are only writing for hobby.”
Hold on. Hit the rewind button on that. Hobby? I don’t park my butt down every day (before going to my full time job) to pump out 1k words for a HOBBY! I took offense to that. I’m a pantser by every sense of the word. I get an idea from a line in a song, a character on television, or someone I see out on the street, and then I run with it.
Take my book Research Required for instance. The heroine is waiting for a pizza to be delivered when someone knocks at her door. She’s expecting the delivery boy, not some gorgeous guy. The hero has gone to the wrong apartment. That’s all I had to start with. Nothing special.
As I sat and wrote the story I couldn’t believe the twist and turns that have sprung to life. This story turned out to be a romantic suspense. Oh, BTW, it started out as a straight contemporary romance. So, you see for me flying by the seat of my pants works.
Here’s another point. Recently I had to write a synopsis for a short story. I didn’t want to write the full story if the editor didn’t feel it would fit her current anthology. She loved the idea and asked me to write it. I knew the beginning, middle and end. Great, right?
Wrong!
I struggled with getting the words down on paper. In fact, I secretly thought the story sucked big time. I’ll know better when I go back to edit. The point is I plotted this one. Maybe it’s in my head, maybe not. All I know is for right now pantsing seems to work for me. When I try to deviate from this I get stuck. Maybe some time in the future that will change and I’ll become a plotter, but for now I’m sticking with what works.
What’s your thought being a plotter or pantser?