To outline or not to outline

I've come to believe there are as many approaches to writing fiction as there are writers. Some complete the entire novel before making any revisions. Others agonize over a paragraph before going on to the next. One of the big debates is whether or not it's imperative to outline your story before delving into the writing. Those who do outline, swear by it, claiming it keeps you focused on the theme of your story, or the direction you want it to take--that it basically keeps you on track. Those who don't outline often say it thwarts their creative juices. I fall in the "don't outline" camp for the simple reason that I can never think what to put in my outline. I spend a lot of time thinking out my story in a general sense, but it's not until I'm actually sitting at the computer that it begins to unfold. After listening to some authors, whose work I totally admire, enumerate the benefits of outlining, I decided to give it a try with a novel I had half written. I even went back and briefly noted the general gist of each chapter I'd already written. When I finished that, I sat down ready to outline the rest of the book. And I sat there...and sat there. Finally, I went and wrote the next chapter so I knew what to add to the outline, and that's when I knew outlining probably wasn't going to work for me. It's an interesting thing to learn about yourself, especially when as a researcher for many years, I outlined every report before I wrote it. But those were technical reports with an introduction, a hypothesis, methods of data collection, analysis, and results. The outline is already there, you just fill in the blanks. You'd think that with that much experience outlining, it would come natural for me, but in fiction, it doesn't. I guess the moral of this blog is, don't agonize over what works for others, do what works for you, and appreciate the diversity of methods that produce incredible stories.