To Outline, or Not to Outline?

I'm gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and I've decided to outline my fiction for the first time ever. I never outlined while I was writing fiction before, but recent experiences have led me to rethink that. Of course, I outlined my papers in grad school--needless to say, a totally different experience from writing fiction. But it really helped me organize my thoughts.

What really pushed me over the outlining edge were the scriptwriting process I went through over the last two years. If we were interested in writing a play for camp, we had to do a proposal which included an act-by-act, scene-by-scene outline. I never felt pressured to stick exactly to the script, but it helped a great deal to see where I was headed, and how I planned to get there.

I have 25 "scenes" in my NaNo outline. That's fewer than 2,000 words a scene. I can totally do this (she says now, with 5 days to go until the crazy month of November begins)!