What's the best bit for you?

[Bloom]

Just published my first book, finished writing the second (it's resting before editing) and started planning the third.

I was wondering what the best bit of writing was for other authors.

For me, I think it's definitely the plotting (thinking 'ooh, I wonder if that could happen'), followed closely by the actual writing, when plots come together and words start flowing.

 

[Vaz]

The magical first draft stage where you can just skull vomit all your ideas onto the page - pure bliss.

'course, then the next phase requires some strenuous editing.

 

[Ragandar]

Worldbuilding, probably. Whenever I have a new idea, I end up shifting entire continents and cultures around in my world in order to accomodate all the new things that I wish to include. I love doing that, even if the ideas I had, do not directly apply to my current stories.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Editing. I love editing. There's always one weirdo.

 

[ratsy]

My favorite part is visualising a scene, sitting down and busting out 2000 words and being happy with almost every word. Feels like things are being accomplished and it's uplifting.

Jo, you are sick. Seek help!!!

 

[AnyaKimlin]

When I find the story in amongst the writing and it starts to flow. When that happens I'm comfortable with my characters and I've got their voices nailed. Like Jo I also love the editing phase. It's when the story really takes shape, begins to shine and becomes something beautiful and fab.

The only bit I don't like is starting a new one. I feel like the only person at a party that doesn't know anyone else. It's true even with characters I've written before because their lives have moved on since the last story and the previous story has shaken them, torn them apart and they've evolved. An event happened at the end of Black's Nest that has shaken Ian to the core and he's acting "out of character" in that he's not making his bed, he's not putting his slippers on when he goes in the house, he's spoiling the dog too much and he's encouraging his great-grandson not to go to nursery. So many of his little habits have changed.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

My favourite part is creating challenges for my characters and they devising ways for them to overcome them. The creation of a literary roller coaster.

 

[Jennifer L. Carson]

One night I went to bed early, about 9. I decided to write a children's story I'd been planning, How the Guinea Pig Lost Its Tail, or Just Another Almost So Story. At some point I started getting tired. I was quite irritated with myself for getting so eye-droopingly groggy at 12 when I usually went to bed around then normally. I pushed through one more page of writing till the end and finished it not long after...that's when I realized it was dawn. I'd written the entire night through and was so into it that I thought only a few hours had passed when in fact 8 or 9 had!

That's the moment I like best about writing: the zone.

 

[Droflet]

Yeah, got to love the zone.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The magical first draft stage where you can just skull vomit all your ideas onto the page - pure bliss.

'course, then the next phase requires some strenuous editing.

Not necessarily. I will admit that I say this from a position of "experience" (can't think of a better word), but it is possible to be In The Zone - a feeling I aim for now every time I write a novel - and self-editing. It's that fine line of simultaneously being the author of the words and the reader reading them. If you can do that on a first draft - the draft where, as mentioned above, all the magic lies - then you're on to a winner. Second and subsequent drafts for me are those versions where the magic begins to die.

Of course, this method doesn't have a 100% hit rate…

 

[HareBrain]

For me, nothing beats the magic of a first draft that just comes out right. But this probably represents about 1% of my output. And coming up with ideas can be fun, but always comes attached to the dread that they won't actually work. Otherwise I'm with Jo, I love editing, especially late-on editing where you just tweak the odd word and realise that was the one you'd been after through all the previous edits.

 

[Juliana]

skull vomit

I think this is my new favorite writing expression.

The only bit I don't like is starting a new one.

That's actually one of my favorite things, when everything is new and shiny, and you're not quite sure yet where you're going, and anything is possible. I love the first draft.

Otherwise I'm with Jo, I love editing,

A while back I would have shuddered. But I'm actually really enjoying the edit I'm doing at the moment. So, okay: it's actually a full rewrite, but still, it's proving really interesting.

 

[The Big Peat]

Any moment where I can be all "Hang on, this is okay". Which increasingly means re-editing.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

That's actually one of my favorite things, when everything is new and shiny, and you're not quite sure yet where you're going, and anything is possible. I love the first draft.

It's all right once the first 20,000 are down. Then I'm starting to really hear and feel the characters. For me, it just takes time to get that feel and for them to flow naturally.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

For me, nothing beats the magic of a first draft that just comes out right. But this probably represents about 1% of my output.

It is indeed rather a high risk strategy, but, when it works…

 

[Brian G Turner]

I *love* the process of discovery - not least in finding a problem, then - eventually - solving it.

Happened today. For a couple of months I've been stuck with my story - the end of Act 1 had become murky, and I knew I was missing something that was preventing me from moving forward.

Today I re-read the first chapters - and came across a reference to something that was supposed to happen that hadn't - I'd completely forgotten about it. Writing that into the end of Act 1 will mean tying a few important threads together.

Can't wait to get writing it - just need to mentally put together core elements, then imagine it, then write it. Am excited!

 

[Ensign Shah]

Surely the best bit is when it's all over and someone hands you a big fat cheque?

 

[Jennifer L. Carson]

Since we're talking a bit about the zone...any of you get so into it your body reacts? I've had to train hubby to leave me alone when writing. Early on, he would interrupt me (yes, he interrupted a writer in the zone. It didn't go well for him, poor man) and ask if I were okay. Seems I breath harder in scenes with physical exertion, and subvocalize depending on the activity in the scene (not words, just sounds), and I noticed my heart rate can change, too. Didn't know this until he started asking.

He knows better now. If Jennifer is in front of the computer twitching like she's having an apoplectic fit, just leave her alone till she falls out of the chair!

 

[Phyrebrat]

The best bit for me happened last night and this morning when daydreaming. It was that moment when - as a discovery writer - things start falling into place, and I can see the route from beginning to end. Now I just need to get to know Gilbert and Alaina a bit better and this strand will write itself. After my poll-post on Balthazar/Bithisarea in the History forum, things just clicked. I'm a momentum-writer, as well as discovery, so I'm coasting that wave now. I was invited to go bowling in Muswell Hill tonight and I turned it down because I wanted to write!

Sad... but good-sad.

pH

 

[JunkMonkey]

Surely the best bit is when it's all over and someone hands you a big fat cheque?

For years I made my living designing jewellery and making it - people at trade shows and craft fairs used to ask what gave me the most satisfaction. I always used to answer, "getting paid". I think I lost out making sales to some people because I didn't live up to their idea of the crafts-man creator mystique.

These days I write/draw comics for fun (and possibly/maybe profit) - the best bit at the moment is the pencilling stage. Between writing the joke - sometimes getting a joke to work is hard - and inking and lettering (a boring grind) comes the pencilling. Love that bit.