WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 12 -- Sunday

[linaewen]

Greetings! It's a new week in our March WIP Challenge.  What kind of a writing day has it been today -- or yesterday, if today hasn't gotten going yet?

•     I thought about my fic once or twice
•     I wrote
•     I did some planning and/or research
•     I edited
•     I've sent my fic off to my beta
•     I posted today!
•     I'm taking a break
•     I did something else that I'll talk about in a comment

Sunday Discussion - A quote from Terry Pratchett says, "The first draft is just you telling yourself the story."  What is your first draft like?  Do you have multiple drafts?  Do you write everything first, without stopping, and then go back to write another draft?  Or do you reread/tweak/edit as you go?

Comments

[linaewen]

In a way, my first draft is my outline. I don't really have any clear-cut draft of my story. Once I start "telling myself the story," I am actually writing it and editing as I go -- one chapter at a time if it's a long tale. Sometimes I leave blank spaces for words I'm not sure about and go back to them later, but usually I am writing a few paragraphs then rereading to make them just the way I want them. By the time I reach the end of the story, it's pretty much ready to go, with just some editing needed to make sure the grammar and spelling are as they should be.

[samuraiter]

Back to the planning phase again, mostly for the long term, as I have exchange 'fics due in April, and I want to do the best job I can do on those. And here I am, almost halfway through March already.

I tend to edit as I go, since most of what I write is short, nowadays, but I admit this is not a great habit. However, I try to never skip the prewriting phase, so that, when I get to the writing itself, I do not have too many stops and starts as I hammer out the story. Knowing exactly what scene I want to create before I begin makes the process a lot easier for me.