Paper? What is
paper?
No writing on paper here! I compose at the keyboard exclusively, and usually I'll write a little, edit it a little, and then close the file. The next time I sit down to write, I go back to the beginning and read what I wrote before, making still more revisions as I go along and then adding some new material to it. Each time I return to it - say it's a chapter in a story - I go back to the beginning and make another pass, so that by the time it's finished, I've been over it quite a few times and only have to do a last cursory proofread before posting. Some sections stay relatively the same throughout this process, and others change so much they're unrecognizable. It just depends.
The downside is that with a
long story, I still feel the need to do this (go back to the very beginning) every time I sit down, and it gets harder and harder to produce anything new; all of my time is spent re-reading and tweaking what I wrote before
. It's one reason I post WiP's, even though I suspect my stories would be better if I didn't. Once it's posted, I'm not as tempted to fiddle with it and can mentally move on to the next part.
Interesting question! I love reading about other peoples' processes - and, obviously, rambling on about mine
Caroline
