Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

The writing process, writing advice, and updates on your work in progress
gilesth
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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by gilesth » December 12th, 2009, 7:55 pm

I love creating characters, writing the first draft, fixing subsequent drafts, and figuring out how to make the plot better. I even like writing the outline, sometimes.

I hate, hate, HATE editing, and querying, and trying to sell my work.

Hardest lesson? I can do it as long as I stick with it and don't throw my computer at the wall every time the work I've written isn't absolutely perfect....which it rarely is :) Oh yeah, and I'm never satisfied with final edits. CDO (OCD in alphabetical order)

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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by Nick » December 13th, 2009, 5:45 pm

I love it up until it's done. Generally the moment I press the final key on my WIP, my brain goes straight into "Why did I just spend all that time doing this? Complete and utter <censored>, this." Favorite part though...it varies from story to story, and sometimes even as the story goes along. Because I let the story flow naturally, even I never know what's going to happen or how I'm going to phrase what's happening, so sometimes I even surprise myself with a way I describe someone or allow a certain event to unfold. Part I hate? Proper beginnings. Usually my idea for the story starts more in media res, as the actual action is beginning to unfold. For example, my idea for this story started with the moment where the story's narrator enters the bedroom to examine the corpse and dig through stuff. Had to backtrack and write how he got to that point. And, well, I don't like all the set-up. But it needs to be done, so I grin and bear it.

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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by Kaitlyne » December 14th, 2009, 2:56 am

My favorite part is the characters. I always love them, and for me writing (and editing) is like getting to go play in their world. I enjoy their company and seeing what they're going to do. :)

The hardest part is a bit more difficult to say...I've always known writing requires a lots of work and editing, and I've never found the idea of revising a text fifteen times all that daunting. I'm going to make a guess here that it's going to be the rejections. I have a pretty easy time right now saying, "Even if this one isn't good enough maybe the next one will be." I know that it's difficult to get published, and I know that I've got a couple of strikes against me (length for one, though to my credit I've cut over sixty thousand words. :D), and I'm even pretty comfortable with the idea that if this one doesn't make it, my writing will continue to improve and I can always come back and rewrite it later on. That doesn't mean if I get to the bottom of my submission list and don't have any bites that it won't be hard, though. I've spent over a year and a half working on this, and it's never fun to work that hard and not succeed. I'd probably have to eat ice cream for a week or something to get over it. :P

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tabwriter
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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by tabwriter » December 22nd, 2009, 11:10 pm

My favorite part is revising. I spend my entire first draft counting down to when I can turn this ugly, rough, misshapen lump of clay into something with depth and detail. I get all excited just thinking about it. :)

So, I guess that means my least favorite part is the first draft (not creation-I create everything before I begin writing).

As for my hardest lesson, well, I'm not sure I have just one. Writing is just plain hard. :)

Madeleine
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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by Madeleine » December 23rd, 2009, 12:12 am

I love the process of writing. Of course, I love it a bit less than having written something fabulous (or crappy, it doesn't matter - I'm almost just as thrilled), but that's natural.

The only thing I hate about writing is that it induces the most irresistible urge to procrastinate. I've just begun writing (I've been plotting for what feels like forever, although it wasn't really that long), and my goal is to be able to shove the first five pages into my parents' stockings on Christmas Eve (unedited, so they'll have to cut me some slack). That's all anyone will read of my MS until it's finished and has been edited at least once. I’ve been slacking and vacationing for a week. I meant to write the last three pages (of the five) tonight, and apparently I'm not going to. ( :

At least I know that procrastination curses us all! I'll have to hop to it tomorrow.

Speaking of Christmas, Happy Holidays!

-Madeleine
"A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." - John Milton

Blog: Worbird

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Holly
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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by Holly » December 23rd, 2009, 12:21 am

My favorite part: Writing the scenes that inspired the novel.

My hardest lesson: Next time I have to outline. Man, oh man, oh man, have I wasted time flying by the seat of my pants.

The next hardest lesson: Writing the hideous query letter and the beastly synopsis. Learning how to be simple.

Richard A Kray
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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by Richard A Kray » December 23rd, 2009, 5:27 am

My favorite thing about writing comes in anywhere from a half hour to two hours to four hours into a session, when I'm absorbed in what I'm creating - when I know what I'm putting down is really good stuff and it just excites me to go on for hours and hours more. (Of course, life will usually interrupt before that, breaking the spell, but it is amazing when it happens.)

The hardest lesson I ever had to learn was that though I may think something is as good as it can be, it still probably isn't. Luckily, I have both an awesome writing buddy and awesome agent, both of whom spot when a bit of suckiness has snuck into my work and have no problem laying down the editorial guillotine on my ass (but do they have to take such pleasure in it? I thought that adverb was okay!)
- Richard A. Kray
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Re: Writing. What's your favorite part? Your Hardest Lesson?

Post by RiayNight » December 30th, 2009, 6:58 pm

rose wrote:I have a love hate relationship with being a writer. i hate having to do it, but I love doing it when I am in it. Every part, the turn of a phrase, the build of a character, the setting of the pacing feels like it is being discovered anew in each project.

Recently I have been marveling at the way unforeseen themes emerge unbidden from the unfolding chapters.

My hardest lesson was that a complete first draft was just raw material, fodder even, for what was to come next.
I second the love-hate relationship. I'm on a break from school right now, and I've been at writing (editing my complete manuscript) every single day. It's SO exhausting. For instance, today I was really down in the dumps when I thought about resuming my editing. But coming here actually really helps me get in the mood to write--thank god for these forums!

My favorite part is rereading what I've wrote that is really, really good.

Hardest lesson was, without a doubt, learning that completing a manuscript is just the beginning of a very, very long and trying road. Editing is so much worse than trying to finish a novel! When I was writing the first draft I was just like, "This is so difficult. SO much more difficult than I ever thought it would be." But now, having finished my manuscript in June, and only being halfway through my edits, I can say with absolute certainty that editing is beyond difficult!

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