Dialogue is definitely the hardest thing for me to write. I usually end up with three pages of description before I remember that the characters are supposed to be talking to each other. I've found that I sometimes end up with much more interesting (to me, anyway) stories when I just let the descriptions show what's going on, rather than trying to force my characters to talk. But while that can work for a short story, it simply doesn't go over too well for anything longer than that.

There are about ten thousand different ways to write badly

And why there are so many notebooks locked away in trunks adn drawers, whispering to us about our pasts.

Descriptions make me sweat. And not in the fun way. To write, I mean. I like other people's.

There are about ten thousand different ways to write badly, she reflected gloomily....

At least two for every writing implement in the universe. Not per writer, but per pen/keyboard/pencil. I'm depressingly convinced of this.

This sounds like an interesting story.

I try to steer clear of thinks that are much too gruesome. (She says, fully aware that she also writes vampires with hypocritical regularity.)

I think the hardest part is actually finishing the story, and not allowing yourself to be seduced away, and starting another, abandoning the original effort to obscurity.

Most of the time it's like squeezing out sparks for me. t piff paff

Squeezing out sparks?

not allowing yourself to be seduced away

You get to the hard "tie together all the lines" part, and this new idea pops into your head, all shiny in its potential, and you just want to go play with it ...

I tend to think of it as the "make the characters really suffer for what they've done" round. No wonder my characters keep chattering away... they're trying to stave off inevitable doom.

I think the hardest part is actually finishing the story, and not allowing yourself to be seduced away, and starting another, abandoning the original effort to obscurity.

Oh, wrod. The Regency romance I'm working on (though with the length and a few sex scenes, I think I'll market it as a Regency-set historical instead) has already spawned two sequel bunnies. One of which will involve massive research on the exact details of the Peninsular Wars ca. 1812, the other equally detailed research on life in Philadelphia ca. 1816. And probably Quakers. And then there's the unrelated time travel plot bunny, requiring copious research on both the hero's original era and how he'd pull off his modern life, not least of which how you'd construct a legal American identity and plausible backstory for someone born 2000 years ago.

That's before we even get into the assorted fantasy worlds. I really have to do something with the pseudo-Polynesian culture I created for a project I never finished from 6 years ago, though my view of the real-world situation that inspired it has changed so much I can't go back to the story itself. And I have another one that took off when I was sitting in church wondering what might've become of David's daughter who was raped by her half-brother (Tamar?) and grew from there. I now have my Tamar-figure's daughter trying to hide her sorcerous powers and pull off a political coup.

I want to write all of these. They tease at my brain, saying if I don't start them now, I'll forget why they seem so inspiring. But I'm going to finish the current project first or die trying.