[UPDATE] Time slicing isn't easy

So I could have posted this update yesterday, but I'm discovering that if I post more than one blog post in a 24 hour period, the earlier posts tend to get ignored because most people just aren't seeing them.

I have Chapter 2 of Hive of Queens pretty much done as of yesterday morning. I haven't posted it because I'm not really terribly satisfied with it. Sure, it hits all the plot points it's supposed to in order to set the stage for Chapter 3, but the whole theme I was going for where each of the first six chapters is supposed to highlight some facet of the fic that I pulled the character from just...wasn't accomplished. Additionally, I'm concerned that the writing method of "10-15 minutes at a time" might have created a shallow, disjointed narrative. I'll be reviewing it this weekend when I have a chance to sit down and read through it without having to interrupt myself every 10 minutes.

Comments

[Herrzog]

I'm surprised you write in such brief stints, it usually takes me a half an hour to get my frame of mind locked in for whatever I'm writing. Of course, I've only written essay's, so I dont know how much that differs from creative writing as opposed to relating and relaying information for a class or a professional presentation.

[PrincessColumbia]

4961512
The creative writing process is very dependent on the individual doing the writing. I know some writers that absolutely must write out everything long-hand and in cursive in a spiral notebook before they transcribe it into the computer, there's some writers that have an old electric typewriter and only ever write on that, paying someone to copy the text into a computer. Some people will sit on a story idea for months until they sit down to hammer out an entire novel in a couple of weeks.

I will sit on an idea for a while, often working entire scenes out in my head. I'll set a start point and an end point, and then let the characters play in that playground in my imagination for a bit until I sit down to write, and even then the story may take an entirely unexpected turn that I never planned on. (I commented on this phenomenon about 1.5 years ago here) Sometimes I may write multiple chapters in a day, sometimes I'll be lucky to get a sentence out in a month. Also, I tend to re-read multiple times in a single sitting to make sure what I'm currently writing flows properly from what I had written before.