My writing process

I'm a fairly organic writer. I don't spend too much time plotting in advance, but I do have a reasonable idea of where the story is going and how it's going to end, and if I get stuck then I will sit down and plot things out. (I do do a lot of character work though, and world building before I start.) If I feel like I'm floundering and don't know where the story is going (which doesn't happen often), I'll use "what if?" as a way of exploring my options. This works best for me if I can get a solid day to myself without interruptions, and I'll get wildly excited by some of these options and then dump them later when better ones come along. (It pays to have an understanding partner who can pack kids up and take them out for the day. I might be able to write with distractions, but for plotting I need clear headspace.)

In my day-to-day writing, I work best when I'm writing every day. There's no getting around this. If I'm only doing a couple of days per week, even for longer blocks, I'm not as productive: the cogs aren't oiled and the wheels aren't spinning as smoothly. It takes me too long to get back into the story.

What I like to do is start each day's writing with reading over the previous day's work. Copyediting this eases me back into what I was thinking and feeling and intending when I left the work off. If I'm forced to leave and the juices are really flowing -- i.e. if I'm dragged, kicking and screaming, from my computer -- I may leave myself a note to say what I was about to do, because I do forget. Yeah, getting old, I know! Usually, though, I don' t have anything but the white page. I'll sink back into the story, reimmerse myself in some character's head, pick up his sword and the reins of his horse and go.

I'm a fast writer, a splurger, and usually I can churn out 1000 words in an hour, easily. Not always. But usually. Some days, though, it's tough going, and I won't get anywhere near this. Can I tell the difference in quality on the days I struggled? No. So it's worth perservering. I know that, and keep reminding myself on those difficult days: bum on seat. Write. Write.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of a big edit. My story is long (currently 182 k, but I'm trying to cut this back) with lots of characters and multiple storylines, and because I've done a number of drafts, I forget sometimes what I've put in and what I've taken out. The broader elements, I know, but it does make it so much more critical to keep plugging away at it and keep myself "in" the story. If I haven't been working on it for a couple of weeks, it can take me a full day's reading to find where I'm at, and this is enormously frustrating because all writing time is precious.

I do have to say though, that I like having written more than I like writing. There are plenty of writers who love that first draft, the white-hot surge of creativity, but I'm not one of them. I love the reworking, the reshaping, paring back the language and fleshing out the action, making small changes to my characters and observing the flow-on effects. That's when I'm truly in heaven!

Tracey Rolfe