I know! I wish I could call in Mused tomorrow, but I'm coordinating a banquet, so it'll be a full day.

I have no time sense, as a person. I flash to moments, stuck in amber, connected by something I can't feel. It's the same when I write, you know? Moments, connected.

That's very much how I tend to think through my stories. I'll note down the visions, the moments, the emotions, key lines of dialogue, etc. in my outline (which changes constantly). These may change or be dropped if the story requires it, but the underlying feel or emotion is still important to the piece.

When I write, it's sort-of-kind of in sequence. If I have three scenes with Character A intercut with several scenes featuring Characters B & C, I may write the three character A scenes as a unit, especially if I feel that I've made myself at home in that character's head.

Deb, a Word document is just fine. You can send it either to my profile addy or my work addy (aweber AT bernan DOT com). Thanks!

I envy all you folks who know the way you like to write. I start writing one way, and change-- maybe I'll begin chronologically, get stuck with that, flip forward to ten years in the future and write that scene, get stuck again, try to fill in the gaps and fail, play around, re-write the beginning, try and work out what happens at the end... and in short, I never know what I'm going to be able to write next or where to go.

I've never finished a novel, possibly because of this.

Word docs sent to Nilly, Bev and Anne.

Plei, that analogy - the quilting - fascinates me. I have no eye for needlework, which along with the math lack, also explains it.

I'll go back and edit, mind you. If the character takes the bit between his or her teeth and runs off to develop other traits, I'll go back and arrange from consonance of self. But even when I see the scene three chapters ahead? I make it wait and build the lead-up.

Got it, Deb. Will the end of the week be soon enough for feedback?

Plei is me, at least in terms of construction techniques. I flip from scene to scene -- whichever is most strongly in my mind at the moment. I niggle at the tough parts while scribbling the easy ones. Back and forth, in and out, weaving in the plot strands at the beginning that I need to pick up at the end.

Then I go back and smooth transitions, and check to make sure I didn't drop something somewhere. Often I have, so I have to write something to slot in that spot.

I like writing that way, because I do think I would not finish anything long if I could only write chronologically. This way I can write the climax, realize that I need to set up the interpersonal dynamics in a certain way, and go back and do that.

It frees me from having figured everything out at once, before I even start. I can always go back and change it later. Yay for word-processors!

I like writing that way, because I do think I would not finish anything long if I could only write chronologically.

Hell, I wouldn't finish anything short if I could only write chronologically. When I try, I get to the first stuck place, and (all too literally) that's all she wrote. Writing out of order, I can leave it to simmer and come back, rather than losing the momentum altogether.

You people is all crazy and shit. At least, you writing-out-of-order people.

Not that I'm not, you understand.

I have to write chronologically, because once I know the ending my interest begins to wane. The last couple of chapters of a novel or the last few pages of a short story are always a struggle, because mentally I've moved on to other things. I've tried skipping a difficult scene to write the next one, but it doesn't work for me. I have to slog through and find out what's keeping me from writing that scene in order to keep going.

I think this is because the story always mutates into something else by the time it is all written, and any scene might inform that. Every scene I'm writing leads into the next scene, and if I go into it not knowing the subtleties of what happened in the previous one it doesn't feel right. Not that I'm always subtle, but I want to leave myself that room.

Um, I think I might need clarify something: I don't have a hard and fast rule, "I Must Write In Order", or anything. It's just the way my creativity works. I did it with music, as well; I never wrote a part of a lyric, then diddled with a part of a chord progression, then went back. It was lyric entire/chord structure entire or vice versa, although sometimes I'd add a bit of structural stuff to the guitar line.

That's why I think collaborating might be a good idea for me, with someone who works the other way. There are one or two unfinished novels that I think are unfinished because they need the "further on up the road" look, and I simply can't provide that.

Bev, end of week is fine, ta. I still have to finish the checkover of Weaver and write the cover letter and get it off to St. Martins, and that takes precedence, because the deadline is next Thursday.

The thing is, process is magic. If it works, it works. Somebody else's process won't necessarily work for you. One of the worst things people who are teaching writing or talking about it do, IMHO, is to insist that their process is the only one that can possibly work.

So... for me, writing scenes that come to me is the easy part. The hard part is finding the threads to link them together.