WriteonWednesday: meme…

 

 Becca‘s prompt this week is (again) fun and offers a peek into other writers’ habits, something we’re always curious about.

1)  Do you write fiction or non-fiction?  Or both?
BOTH, but my fiction is spontaneous and unfinished.

2)  Do you keep a journal or a writing notebook? 
I KEEP JOURNALS. Erratically.
I also collect notebooks (and journals). It’s a “paper” thing.

3)  If you write fiction, do you know your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts before you start writing or is that something else you discover only after you start writing? Do you find books on plotting useful or harmful?
I JUST JUMP INTO FICTION. I get a feel for a place or a person and I begin to write. Little wonder that I have not, to date, finished a book of fiction, nor even come close. Not yet. I have little patience for books on plotting except for one I purchased recently called WRITE A NOVEL IN 30 DAYS. I’ve opened it twice.

4)  Are you a procrastinator or does the itch to write keep at you until you sit down and work?
ALTHOUGH I DANCE AROUND THE WORK AND LOOK LIKE I’M PROCRASTINATING, I’M NOT. It’s like a ritual, my thought process and my circling of the chair and the eyeing of the desk and PC. Once writing though, I stick. I just keep going. I always tell myself that I can fix it, edit it tomorrow.  And I grind on through the night ’til it’s done. Done for the moment.

5)  Do you write in short bursts of creative energy, or can you sit down and write for hours at a time?
I CAN GO FOR HOURS. I LIKE THE BURST METHOD, TOO; IT TYPICALLY BETTER SUITS MY SCHEDULE.

6)  Are you a morning or afternoon writer? 
MORNING. And conversely, late night. But not both in the same day, at least not consecutively!

7)  Do you write with music/the noise of children/in a cafe or other public setting, or do you need complete silence to concentrate?
I LOVE LIFE AND SOUND HAPPENING AROUND ME as long as I’m there as a disinterested, “disinvolved” person.

8)  Computer or longhand? (or typewriter?)
TYPICALLY PC, BUT L.O.V.E. LONGHAND. Though I’d love, too, the sound of a typewriter, I’d scramble it, get the keys all stuck at once and it would be nearly unreadable – I’m used to the saving grace of the backspace key!

9)  Do you know the ending before you type Chapter One?  Or do you let the story evolve as you write?
WHILE I MIGHT NOT KNOW THE STORY (AS INDICATED HERE IN AN EARLIER ANSWER) I ALWAYS KNOW THE END.  THIS GIVES ME COURAGE TO SET OUT AND WORK MY WAY THROUGH THE MAZE TO THE ENDING.

10)  Does what’s selling in the market influence how and what you write?
NO.

11)  Editing/Revision – love it or hate it?
LOVE IT. It means I’ve written something! And that now I get to shine it up, pare it down, get it to glisten if it’s held just so, in the light.