And Another One!

Since any actual content I could write in this blog right now would be more "Edits revising blah blah blah editscakes," I'm going to do another survey! Really, though, these things are good at giving me things to talk about.

1. Do you outline?

Nope. I've tried to outline, and I never actually wrote the stories once I was done with the outline. A lot of the fun of the process for me is seeing where the story goes. Planning it all out ahead of time takes a ton of the enjoyment out of it for me. I kind of feel like I've already written it, you know?

2. Do you write straight through, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?

Oh, I have to write linearly. Since I don't plan it all out ahead of time, I only have a vague idea of where things are headed. So I usually can't jump ahead to a scene further along because I don't always know what's going to happen next.

But even in instances where I have a further scene planned out in my head, I can't actually write it until I get there. I came up with the epilogue of The Witch of November about halfway through writing the novel but I just couldn't write it until it was time to write it. So it rolled around in my head for months until I wrote the last chapter, heh.

3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?

I actually prefer pen and paper but I feel like I'm too impatient for it now. I type much faster than I handwrite, and it's so much easier to just highlight and delete if I have to change something than it is to scribble stuff out. Especially when I realize down the road that something didn't work the way I thought it would and I have to go back and rewrite a section of two chapters before but don't necessarily need to lose everything.

Which is sad, because watching a blank sheet of paper fill up with your own words is really kind of cool.

4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?

Definitely third. I've written a couple short pieces in first person, but I don't think I could maintain for much more than a few thousand words.

I tend to write third-person omniscient, where the narrator knows everything. I feel very limited when I write in first person, since you can only write about what that one character knows and thinks. With third person, you can switch out POVs, jump into any character's head.

I really don't switch POV often (I'd say about 90% of The Witch of November is from Allie's POV) but I do it enough that not having the freedom to do so bothers me.

5. Do you listen to music while you write?

Yes. I've found, for whatever reason, that Vertical Horizon works the best at helping me focus. I've created a Pandora station based on them, so it plays the Goo Goo Dolls, Lifehouse, Switchfoot, The Calling ... bands like that. Mellow, mid-tempo stuff!

6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters?

Oh God. Naming is so hard for me. First names actually just come to me. Sometimes it's simply a name I like, or sometimes it's a name I feel fits the character I'm envisioning. Though I have rethought a first name if it's hard to type ... depends on how often I have to type it, ha.

Last names are harder, mostly because I'm not all that good at making them up so I use common surnames or variations on common surnames. Lately I've been going through the client database at work for surname ideas, if only so I don't use the same ones over and over.

I pair the first and last names up by sound. If I like the way the name rolls off my tongue, I say, "Yes! You are my new character!"

And on the very rare occasion I have to think of a middle name? Takes me for-freaking-ever because I have to match the middle name to the first AND last names by sound!

7. When you're writing, do you ever imagine your story as a television show or movie?

Sort of. *blush* Not in the sense that I've cast it or anything, but yeah, I've imagined the scene I'm writing on a screen. And then I try to write the descriptions based off that image.

8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn't want him/her to do?

Not really. I've certainly had characters write themselves and I've ended up writing things I never intended at the outset, but I've never had the story go in a direction I wasn't open to in the first place.

For example, I wrote a Charmed story entitled "Destiny Calls" in which the sisters take in a little girl who was abandoned at a shopping mall. My original intention was to have Piper be the Halliwell who bonded most with the kid, but in writing the story, it kind of just became Prue. Which actually made more sense, so I was cool with it. I just had to rewrite the beginning, hee.

And then with The Witch of November, I've mentioned that I wound up writing the teensiest of romances between Allie and Charlie. (We're talking holding hands, here ... they're 11, remember). I never planned on doing anything like that but again, I was fine with it because it feels like a natural progression of their relationship.

9. Do you know how a story is going to end when you start it?

In a very vague sense. I know how I want the story to end but I don't always know how the characters are going to accomplish it. A lot of times, the ending comes to me from out of nowhere when I'm trying to explain something else.
In my Supernatural story "Child's Play," I had been planning on John just doing a salt-and-burn for poor Lucy. But in trying to figure out a plausible reason why a five-year-old would continue to hang out at the motel she was taken to by a kidnapper even though the kidnapper's gone, I came up with the idea that her mother had told her that if she ever got lost, she should stay where she was and her mom would come and find her.

And that gave me the idea that the Winchesters could just talk her into the light, so to speak, by convincing her that her mom had finally come for her.

10. Where do you write?

Anywhere I can get my hands on a pen and a couple pieces of paper!

Okay, for a serious answer, I write mostly on my sofa or my bed with my laptop. I also enjoy bringing my laptop out on my balcony on nice days.

11. What do you do when you get writer's block?

Air horn and water! [/Sports Night joke]

Honestly, I try working on something else. Usually it's not a block, per se, just a kind of burnout on my current project.

I did have one long period of writer's block where I wrote next to nothing for close to two years. It was terrible! I finally broke through it by trying fic for a new fandom.

12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the fic as a whole)?

My limit is typically 1000 words a day (which is one of the many reasons I could never do National Novel Writing Month in November ... I don't write fast enough!). On rare occasions I can squeeze out more than that, but 1000 a day is pretty much my saturation point. Nothing comes out the way I want after that; I think I get tired.

13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?

My last posted piece was a Harper's Island fic called "Hide and Seek." I think I did ... five drafts of that. Maybe six. 

(I don't usually keep a running tally ... I just keep tweaking until it comes out "right.")

As such, I honestly have no idea what draft I'm on for The Witch of November. I've played with the beginning a whole bunch but I've only gone through one set of edits for the ending chapters.

14. Have you ever changed a character's name midway through a draft?

Minor characters, yes. Major characters? Not on your life. Once they're named, that's it. They're stuck with it. :)

15. Do you let anyone read your story while you're working on it, or do you wait until you've completed a draft before letting someone else see it?

Oh, I go over all that shit with a fine-toothed comb before anyone sees it. I think the only time I ever showed anyone a completed piece before I was done with the edits was when I sent my sister the second draft of "Hide and Seek." Because I had way too much fun with that story and I wanted to share, hee.

16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?

Honestly? I take a break!

17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once?

Kinda depends on your idea of a completed project. I can only write one story at a time, in terms of plotting, but I have been known to start a second story while the first one is in edits. And I have put The Witch of November on the back burner for a couple of days when fanfic plotbunnies wouldn't leave me alone.

18. Do your stories grow or shrink in revision?

Grow. My first drafts are very dry because they're more about getting the story out than making it sound pretty. Punching up the language, injecting the humor, and expanding on explanations all happen in edits.

19. Do you have any writing or critique partners?

No. I 've posted things under a lock on my LiveJournal if I'm looking for concrit on something in particular before, though, and my brother has offered to give The Witch of November a read-through for me for some of the technical stuff. But no, I don't have anyone who looks over my stuff before it's posted on a regular basis.

20. Do you prefer drafting or revising?

This one's hard for me to answer right now because edits are eating my soul. Both of them are fun; drafting is when the story takes shape but revising is when the story becomes good. I do think I prefer drafting a teeny tiny little bit, though. I really like the creating something out of nothing aspect of it.