Lordy. It may be outline time.

I'm at the point where I need to start writing more connected prose. I've got a ton of things written, just none of them in any form that links one to the other.

Historically, I am not a big fan of outlines, largely because I create them, start writing, then shift the outline content around so much that it's unrecognizable. But maybe that's what outlines are for, right? Dismemberment.

So here goes. 

Introduction: I don't even know where to begin with this.

Part I: Tropes and Metafiction

Part II: Chambers and the Artist as Investigator

Part III: Detective Fiction

Part IV: Lovecraft and True Detective

Part V: The Artist-Investigator

Conclusion

And here's the list of everything I have in my inventor's notebook #2 that is labeled "thesis idea." Page numbers in parentheses.

The artist as anti-hero (37)
The necessary death of the investigator (38)
The self-erasing investigator; the investigator without a self; the death of the investigator (38)
Chambers, Lovecraft, and the new ethos of True Detective (38)
Chambers, Lovecraft, and True Detective's Impossible Intrusions (41)
Full paragraph of thesis idea, induced by Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature": The artist-investigator is the theme uniting Chambers, Lovecraft, and True Detective. For Chambers, Lovecraft, and the writers of True Detective, the artist amplifies the powers of the investigator, changing the aesthetic of both the artist and the investigator and permitting the investigator to understand his entrance into the world of the criminal. (50)

Through the combination of the artist and the investigator, Chambers, Lovecraft, and the writers of True Detective place the first season firmly in the weird fiction tradition. (51)

The simultaneity of eldritch horror and human reality is Lovecraft's specialty, and its translation in True Detective follows both detective fiction and weird fiction conventions. (59-60)

Looks like I have some that are useful as chapter thesis ideas and some that can safely be tossed after the rest are used.

Seriously, I've got so much material, I don't know where to start. This likely means that I should return to writing by hand, which is how I figure things out best.