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writing habits of Dresdenarians

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stingray00alex:
-Use a computer, old-fashioned typewriter, or pen and paper?
Computer.

-Set aside a time every day to write?
No. When the mood takes me, or when I have a particularly good idea, or when I have nothing else to do and time to burn, I write.

-Force yourself to write something every day, even if it comes out stilted?
No.

-Have an outline, or just start with an idea?  If an outline, how detailed is it?
I've despised outlines since high school english. I generally write without a written plan, but I have a layout somewhere mentally. Most of the time.

-Have a room or area specifically for writing?
Beauty of laptops, can go anywhere. Starbucks ftw!

-Play Queen or Queensryche to shut out the world, or do you need complete silence?
I write the same way I read: Anywhere, with any distractions. When I'm doing either of those things, I'm completely unaware of anything going on around me.

-Start with plot, or with characters?
I start with neither. I focus on ideas and concepts to guide my writing. For example, my current book focuses on Syntropy opposed to Entropy. All plot and charactes are somehow derived from that. I know, it's horribly vague and general, but I get my best plot elements and characters by using general concepts, usually antithesis's, as central ideas. Antithesis's? Antithesisii? Antithesises? Bah. To quote Dresden, stupid latin corrospondence course.

-Edit and re-write as you go, or when come to the end?
Definitely as I go. Particularly urgent ideas usually leave out such meager considerations as grammer when hurridly typed out, and the next day I usually make major revisions.

-Show your rough draft to others, or re-write first?
To others, I've gotten a lot of good feedback on my writing from it, which is especially valuable in my case because this is the first book I've undertaken. Other than English class essays, (I'm a high school senior graduating in just a few days), I've not received any review of my writing, until I decided to start writing my aforementioned book.

-Struggle most with dialogue, exposition, action scenes, or bridge scenes?
Dialogue for me is easy. Action scenes are my specialty. Bridge scenes are also not particularly difficult. No, what I have trouble with is the overall length of scenes. The problem isn't a lack of detail, it's that oftentimes my scenes are simply a tad too short, as if I'm trying to hurry to the next one. Character development is also something I need to practice, perhaps a symptom of my aforestated lack of cohesive planning in my writing.

-Talk about what you are writing to others?
Almost everyday.

bloody crumpet:
1 .pen and paper, and sometimes on scraps of it @ work.

2. I try but sometimes let my characters bump around in my brain awhile before letting them out.

3. not as much as I'd like. grrr.

4.start with an idea. 90 percent of the time I hear character conversations in my head and then roll with it. or maybe thats schizophrenia. sigh.

5.YES!! i have a vampire/cabaret lair in my basement and it's all MINE!!

6.music=life, for me and my characters. eclectic though, not a set soundtrack.

7.edit and rewrite all the time. in fact I am spending more time on my "finished" first then my unfinished second.

8. show some people. turned half of it in for a final project in college then started to "tweak" it again based on how characters developed in book two. and now im stuck.

9.not enough filler it seems to me sometimes. if that even makes sense to anyone else.

10. i live in writer solitude. i wish i had others to talk to...thats why i found you!!!!!

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