How do you write?

Fruitbat said:

Where and when?

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In my office.

When? If I'm not sleeping, out of the house, seeing to chores or at my dinner, I'm writing. Or trying to.

Fruitbat said:

What do you do when you get stuck or just don't feel like it?

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I write anyway.

If you give up or just leave it, you're not a writer. You're a wannabe.

Fruitbat said:

Where and when?

What do you do when you get stuck or just don't feel like it?

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I write any time I'm at my home computer and I can justify a cup of coffee. So that's any time between 6AM and 9PM.

If stuck, I edit (ie re-write earlier stuff fairly thoroughly) and if I don't feel like writing I edit (ie rewrite rather slowly and ineptly).

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE: I love Starbucks and Panera, unless they have the A/C cranked too high. I can sit there from morning until they close, just writing.

INSIDE THE HOUSE: I have a chair in my bedroom that is PERFECT for writing in with my laptop. And to be honest, it's a collapsible lawn chair -- one of the new nylon ones with cup holders. I have it covered with an afghan to help it blend in with my room. (The best way to disguise such a chair is to use an afghan trimmed with a generous amount of fringe along all 4 borders! ) But it's comfortable enough for me to be able to sit there for hours and not hurt my back, and the cupholders are just perfect.

THE MARATHON RUN: During those time when I am on a roll and I just can't put it down, I go to bed with the laptop and write until I start to fall asleep. Then I shut it down, slide the laptop aside on the mattress, wake up next morning and grab the laptop and just keep writing until I have to pee, and I try to pee as quickly as possible. While I'm in the bathroom I MIGHT take the extra couple minutes to do only a very hastey job of brushing my teeth. But I simply MUST get back to that laptop -- and there's no way I'm taking a shower because I'd be away from the laptop for too long. Breakfast? Fughedeabowdit! I'll lose all kinds of weight when I am in one of these intensive fits of writing and just can't stop. The most I'll do for food during these marathon writing endeavors is grab an orange juice or a spring water.

What do I do when I am stuck and just don't feel like it?

I put it down for a few weeks, put some distance betwen me and it. After a few weeks I come back and can usually figure out what I need to do to either fix what stumped me, or whatever.

Ocassional breaks from it are always important.

I have to write when I simply feel moved or inspired to write. That's not to say there are some days when I feel like it more than others, but if I am totally not in the mental place to be creative then I can't do it... Yes, it means there are sometimes days (rarely weeks) where I take a break from writing, but this just works for me...
It doesn't worry me if I take small breaks from writing until I feel inspired - it works, because I have finished two novels I am very, very happy with.

I find if I force myself to write when I don't want to, I just end up unhappy with what ends up on the page and it generally ends up in the recycling bin.

I can do things to HELP me get inspired - read a favourite book etc, and that sometimes works.

As for WHERE I write, it depends.. sometimes it's simply on the sofa with the laptop on my knee, sometimes it's in the bedroom when my husband is playing his music too loud!

I have an office that I never use because I hate being alone. So I write sitting on the couch, watching TV while my family does their thing around me.

I also write Mondays when my daughter is at dance. Some of the best writing gets done in the waiting area of dance class.

I never really get stuck. If I find a scene hard to write, i skip to a new one.

I write at the kitchen table, slouched in a chair, my feet propped up in another, and I write on a laptop, in the morning, with the sunshine at my back and a pot of steaming tea at my elbow. I write from 9am to noon, eat lunch, wash dishes, and resume from 1pm to 2:30 or 3 or 4pm, depending on how things are going and what else I have to do. I write when I don't feel like it, just the same as going to work when I don't feel like it, and I write through every sticking place with the belief that I'll eventually figure things out, even if I have to go back later to fix them. So far, it's worked more often than not.

I write when I have a scene in mind. When I'm stuck, I review my scenes to figure out what's missing that should lead to another.

Fruitbat said:

Where and when?

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When I can fit it in with my shifts and when my kids aren't about. Where - laptop on sofa or at PC. Scribbling down of notes I can't read later is done any-and-everywhere

What do you do when you get stuck or just don't feel like it?

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Write anyway, or I'd never finish.

I write whenever I have time. I'd love to have a set place and time to do it, but I take what I can get. (Usually, my writing time is lunch-break at work.)

When I get stuck, it means something isn't working. I've written myself into a corner I don't know how to get out of, or my plot needs tweaking. I'll think on it for awhile and if that doesn't give me an answer, I go back and re-read to see if I can take the story down a slightly different road that doesn't dead-end.

When I just don't feel like it... I write anyway. I might switch projects for a change of pace, or I might write out plot-lines or character bios. But I still find something to write. If you want to write for a living, it's a job and even at a job you love, sometimes you just don't wanna. You do it anyway.

Fruitbat said:

Where and when?

What do you do when you get stuck or just don't feel like it?

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I write anywhere. Weather permitting, I like to write outside. Weather not permitting, I sometimes go sit in a reading/writing room at the library. When is pretty much every day, and at roughly the same time.

I don't get stuck, if for no other reason than I can always switch projects. But I usually don't get stuck, anyway. I can always keep writing something, even if it doesn't feel right at the time. Looking at it later, it usually is right.

If I don't feel like writing, I sit down and write. This is what being a writer is all about. Writing should be work you love, work you can't wait to get to each day, but is work, and when you're both employee and boss, you'd better be a tough boss who doesn't give days off lightly.

But I will say that if I didn't feel like writing more often than not, I'd stop writing altogether and go find something else I loved to do. Life is far too short to spend it doing something you don't feel like doing.

Jamesaritchie said:

But I will say that if I didn't feel like writing more often than not, I'd stop writing altogether and go find something else I loved to do. Life is far too short to spend it doing something you don't feel like doing.

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^ THIS. A hundred times, this.

If more often than not, I sat down to write with a sense of dread, I simply wouldn't do it anymore.

When: Whenever I can find some free time, but it must be when no one else is around. If the kids are running around screaming (as they are now)...it is not going to work. So it is usually at night or when I've tossed them all outside to play.

Where: Usually in my bedroom where I have a desk. But I dream of my own office. I sometimes go to Starbucks, but I have to have a table facing the wall where I can't really see anyone. For whatever reason I get distracted by the people walking by but not the noise.

If I get stuck: I've had to train myself to just keep writing, even if it's crap. That usually gets me over the hump.

When: As often as possible. My full-time job schedule varies in hours and days of the week so it's perfect for me to write at various times. I have no set schedule for writing. If I found myself not writing, I would create a set schedule.

Where: Mostly in my apartment. I live in a 500 sq. ft. studio (perfect) with my iMac on a library table and a recliner in front of it. I type from my recliner with a wireless keyboard.

If I'm stuck: and I want/need to write, the most helpful thing for me is to go somewhere that's similar to the surroundings in the scene that I'm currently writing. I've sat on benches or planters in downtown Minneapolis with people scurrying all around me. I've gone to the nature conservatory and written there. Malls, parks, rivers, parking lots, neighborhood streets where I sat myself down under a tree between the sidewalk and the road, etc., I've even gone to IKEA when I needed to feel like I was in a character's house, whether it was the kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc.,

This really, really works for me. It helps me be more aware of my senses and reminds me to keep it real. It helps me to add appropriate sights, smells, noises, etc., Sometimes just the traveling to get to these places clears my mind enough. When I need absolute quiet, or when I can't find similar surroundings to write in, I go to the library and use their quiet rooms.

If I don't feel like it: I usually write anyway and keep the discipline. If I truly just don't feel like writing, I don't. I know I'm disciplined enough to see through my own excuses and work in spite of them. So, when I really can't bring myself to write that day, I don't force it.

Plot Device said:

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE: I love Starbucks and Panera, unless they have the A/C cranked too high. I can sit there from morning until they close, just writing.

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Oh, so you're one of those customers my boyfriend is always telling me he runs into at Panera. The employees are amused by people like you.

His store has a couple regulars who are in there most of the day with their laptops. I always wonder if they're writers, and what they're writing.

I write whenever no one else is looking. For some reason, mommy writing is the trigger of the "I'm hungry/thirsty/bored" parade.

If I can't write (which usually means I can't get near my computer), I read. If I'm stuck, I edit or do the agent search again.

I park in my upholstered rocking chair/rocking armchair with my laptop and base. Put the tv on a classical radio station, usually chamber music, and go incident by incident. Hope it flows.

leahzero said:

Oh, so you're one of those customers my boyfriend is always telling me he runs into at Panera. The employees are amused by people like you.

His store has a couple regulars who are in there most of the day with their laptops. I always wonder if they're writers, and what they're writing.

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Yep! That's me!

And four years ago when I spent 5 months at my local Starbuck's writing the first screenplay that I ever actually finished and then actually shopped around Hollywood, every last barista employed there knew me by name, they often gave me free drinks, and two of them eventually sat down and READ my completed screenplay!

I used to write in my home office. Then we rearranged it so I'm facing the windows. People (kids, husband) are always behind me. I cannot write with people behind me.

So now I take my netbook to a comfy chair in my bedroom. I usually write between sometime 7-10 PM nightly. I also write at an independent coffee shop, lunch hours when I can, and weekends.

I usually write in my office, but often I sit out on in the jungle of my patio with my keyboard.
If I get stuck, I do something else for a while, usually read or come here.
I never dread writing. I like it or I wouldn't do it.



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I write when I damn well feel like it. When I don't, I work on critting for other people and putting on a writers' workshop.

I write pretty much anywhere. I carry a number of yellow legal pads with me, so I'm not umbilicaled to a computer all the time. When I write by hand in those, the first pass into the computer serves as a rough edit, clearing up grammar, clumsiness in sentence construction, etc., and often adding material here and there as I go. The only downside of that is the atrocity of my handwriting, which now and then leaves me headscratching over something that looks like it should be a word, but maybe isn't.

There's never any dread about the writing part of writing. The dread comes every time I contemplate submitting anywhere.

I write wherever's there a sunny spot in my house. I move around a lot. I write every day, and can write morning, afternoon or night. (Morning is best though.)

I have to face the door, though. If I'm startled or surprised, I can't get back on task for at least 20 min or so. My concentration is so intense I don't hear what's going on around me, which is both a good and a bad thing.

I write at my uncle's dining room, in my room, on a vanity, or on a computer desk in the side hallway of the living room.


The only time I don't feel like writing is when I am depressed, but it has to be something major, a depression episode that will last for months, major depression, not to the point where I don't feel like eating or sleeping, but just to the point where I don't feel like doing anything that I find fun or entertaining, like listening to music, watching TV or writing. I don't cry, either, I just eat and sleep disinterested in everything around me.

Other than that, when I get stuck, a new scene always pops up in my head, and I keep going.