TNT2: the process

[azuire]

Hello everyone! Hope you're all getting a plethora of ideas for the Week 1 Topic! Meanwhile, it's Tuesday, and here's another TNT column! Remember, if you have an idea for a discussion, feel free to PM it to us!

Allons-y!

My favourite parts of the writing process are:
a) characterisation. I enjoy giving each character the breath of life, so to speak. Learning strange things about them: how they react under pressure, what their favourite colour is, and if they're prone to putting ketchup on bananas. One of the first questions I ask a character is, 'If you're in a dark alley and someone attacks you, what do you do?'
b) endings. I love that satisfying feeling of finishing a work: I have so many half-baked ones lying around. Especially if it's a long work, that I forgot about and came back to.

So, what are your favourite parts of the writing process? And what are your least favourites, if any?

Share away :-)

Comments

[pipisafoat]

I can't think of a favorite off-hand, but my least favorite is research. It's crazy, though - I love doing the research. But I get too caught up in it and never get around to writing. Alternatively, I don't realize when I start writing that I'll need to research things, and then I try to write past it but it's a plot point, so I start looking it up and get distracted and never return to the story. Yeah. It's ridiculous.

[selkath]

Writing out the thick of the story, and descriptions, I think. I have a tough time with characterization, and I very rarely actually get to any kind of ending: therefore, those are rather hard for me to like!

[lalalaleigha]

I'm in a block with my writing partly because I struggle to write one-offs: I insist on planning out an entire series in my head, an extensive, interweaved universe, and then I never get around to actually writing it out.

I like the planning, the imagining, the creating. But my least favourite part about the writing process is the writing itself -- it never does justice to the marvels that exist in my mind's eye.

(Can I just note how much I like this Tuesdays structure? It works. I enjoy it a lot.)

[so_wordy]

Everything.

I love the insanity that precedes writing. The moment when an idea strikes me and I begin to unwind it in my mind, turning it over and dissecting it. Something small (and completely random) expands into a larger piece. The fact that my brain multi-tasks (ideas strike at strange moments) is a plus.

More often than not I have no idea which direction a story is going to go in until I start writing it. This can be problematic. I'm terrible at planning ahead, but at the same time the actual writing (and discovery) of plot, characters, and other devices, is (though frustrating at times)an adventure.

Most of all I love having completed a project. It gives me a deep sense of satisfaction and renews my belief that writing is what I was meant to do. Of course everything doesn't come out as planned, but that's okay. A win here or there, I'll take it.

Also, it's deeply gratifying when people connect with my work. It makes me realize there are other people out there like me. Hi kindreds!

But that's another story. :)

[mercredigirl]

My worst enemy is myself; my most hated aspect is the actual nitty-gritty writing itself. Perfectionist as I am, I will spend forever trying to hammer out something, and then I will become possessed by the spirit of an oracular Plotbunny and end up writing something else completely, in a feverish haste. Months later, I come back to the original draft, think Jeez Louise who wrote this, and get back to that one.

Rinse, lather, and repeat!

(My favourite part is actually sitting down with the final final version, and think, Jeez Louise, this is good, who wrote this?!)