My comfort zone is slowing me down!

My comfort zone is to plan, plan, and over-plan. I want to complete an outline of my story. I have to interview my characters, striving to know everything about them and their motivation. I spend hours jotting down scene details. But you know what? I DON'T write.

After all of the planning, I sit at my keyboard and freeze. Or I start to write all the details that I've planned and the characters want to go in a whole new direction and throw me completely off-kilter. I get terrified and run out of my office and take a three hour nap.

I need to get out of my "comfort zone" because when it comes to writing it becomes "uncomfortable" and is totally unproductive. I've been planning and "writing" my WIP for two years now and have gotten stuck when my character went off script and refused to cooperate. So then I started anew, was truly motivated, want to let my characters lead the way. Don't fret! I didn't throw away all that I've written so I'm not starting from scratch, but I just want to kick myself for starting over.

I'm just trying to be positive and tell myself that stepping out of my comfort zone is a good thing.

AJ