I think we've talked before about how different our writing habits are :).
I think that may be true...!
Me, I don't do drafts apart from writing out most of my stories by hand and editing them while typing. Then they get another one-over before they're done and off to the beta. And I practically have to whip myself to go through the writing process, without much attention to style or anything. I do get passages or lines pop into my head where I *know* they're good, but everything else is just scribbling down.
I don't get that 'know they're good' feeling very often. And I'm absolutely not fishing for compliments here: I wonder if maybe I search so hard for 'better' that sometimes I miss the 'good'. In the Sirius, the bit I like best was the witches' fingers (and I had seen icicles like that only recently!) but I wasn't sure whether I should delete the broken glass image for the dog's dreams: I thought it was pretty but I wasn't really sure it belonged. It nearly wasn't in the version you saw!
I don't even think about quality when writing, and editing never leads to significant word count reduction (the opposite, rather), only takes care of a few superfluous fillers and adjectives/adverbs.
I've got to actively turn my inner editor off, which is proving diverting. Forcing myself never to look back at what I've written is something I need to discipline myself to do, made harder by the fact that my typing is the most dreadful on the planet. (I corrected that last sentence nine times and have made four typos in this one.) So it's amusing to read the horro r that is my dirty prose! When I edit, though, I take everything out. And then you make me put all the story back in.
Well, apart from endless circular dialogue that tends to pop up when I'm working up to a sex scene I hate writing - but that's pretty much the only thing I prune systematically :).
Ha! In the original story I'm trying to write, I can't get my main characters to acknowledge the plot. Every time I think it's unavoidable they go and buy sweets.
I think that may be true...!
Me, I don't do drafts apart from writing out most of my stories by hand and editing them while typing. Then they get another one-over before they're done and off to the beta. And I practically have to whip myself to go through the writing process, without much attention to style or anything. I do get passages or lines pop into my head where I *know* they're good, but everything else is just scribbling down.
I don't get that 'know they're good' feeling very often. And I'm absolutely not fishing for compliments here: I wonder if maybe I search so hard for 'better' that sometimes I miss the 'good'. In the Sirius, the bit I like best was the witches' fingers (and I had seen icicles like that only recently!) but I wasn't sure whether I should delete the broken glass image for the dog's dreams: I thought it was pretty but I wasn't really sure it belonged. It nearly wasn't in the version you saw!
I don't even think about quality when writing, and editing never leads to significant word count reduction (the opposite, rather), only takes care of a few superfluous fillers and adjectives/adverbs.
I've got to actively turn my inner editor off, which is proving diverting. Forcing myself never to look back at what I've written is something I need to discipline myself to do, made harder by the fact that my typing is the most dreadful on the planet. (I corrected that last sentence nine times and have made four typos in this one.) So it's amusing to read the horro r that is my dirty prose! When I edit, though, I take everything out. And then you make me put all the story back in.
Well, apart from endless circular dialogue that tends to pop up when I'm working up to a sex scene I hate writing - but that's pretty much the only thing I prune systematically :).
Ha! In the original story I'm trying to write, I can't get my main characters to acknowledge the plot. Every time I think it's unavoidable they go and buy sweets.
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