30 June 2009 @ 09:20 pm
Things you forgot you knew.  
So, I just realised that I had a working writing process. For years. And then I forgot about it. Now I'm going to write it down so I never do anything so fucking stupid ever again.

WRITING PROCESS:
1) On Day One, write stuff on paper. Preferably somewhere you have no computer access.
2) On Day Two (which should directly follow Day One), type Day One's handwritten stuff up. This reminds you of where you are going, and lets you sentence-tweak.
3) Also on Day Two, having reminded yourself of what happened yesterday, write more stuff on paper!
4) Continue!

Note to self: try to give yourself a brief break (perhaps with plotting) between typing stuff up and writing more stuff, because otherwise your hands will die on you.




I don't know why this took me so long to realise. This is how EVERYTHING I HAVE FINISHED has been written. Grey Sky Morning. Uh. Other stu-- okay, everything I wrote to a SCHEDULE THAT I FOLLOWED has been written like this. I knew there had to be a reason for the proliferation of notebooks! Aside from my lack of self-control. I am pretty sure F&F fell apart when I stopped following this process AND NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY.

REJOICE, FOR THIS IS A JOYOUS DAY.
 
 
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rallamajoop: Watanuki[info]rallamajoop on July 1st, 2009 07:05 am (UTC)
Writing process high five?
That's pretty much identical to the most successful writing process I've ever had too (though I tend more towards typing everything up in bulk at the end of the week than doing it as I go along). Ghost Stories got written like that, and the sudden major jump in productivity that hit me back in '06 (as in, from maybe 10-20 thousand words in a good year to something decently close to 100 thousand) was largely thanks to picking up the habit of writing that way. The typing-everything-up stage of the process gets a bit annoying sometimes, but whatever the reason, drafting everything on paper first works so much better for me.

*rejoices with you*
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Rave: DRAGONBALL >> SWEET![info]cheloya on July 1st, 2009 10:19 am (UTC)
Re: Writing process high five?
I think technically I still write best when I write almost constantly for long periods of time (a la NaNo) but it's good to rediscover something that worked for me in high school when I had roughly similar windows of writing time.
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