10. How would you describe your writing process?

Painful.

Well, not physically. But there are times when it feels like pulling teeth. Stories don't write themselves; and some of them are downright uncooperative. Yes, okay: drabbles and ficlets can be written very quickly. (Otherwise there's no point in bothering with something that short.) But the longer works! Aaargghhhhh!!!!

Oh, otherwise? Once upon a time I wrote longhand. Then I typed, and literally had to cut and paste alterations in using scissors and cellotape. Nowadays, I compose directly onto the computer.

Then I revise. The first revision is the one that really pulls things together. After that comes as much polishing as I have time for (given deadlines when I'm writing for a gift exchange). Even so, when I re-read my old stories, I often find typos that have eluded me. One advantage of posting on-line is the ability to correct them ... even years later. :)

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11. What do you envy in other writers?

The ability to keep on going to the very end of some really long fic idea.

Novels are being written out there today: I've read several written by ardent Arrowverse authors. Mind you, I've also encountered more than a few bogged-down WIPs. But there are people who really do slog on to the very utter end of something that's 200+ K words long. And there's a fabulous comics-based Flash AU by enina that started in 2015, is already well over a million words, and still going.

Once upon a time, long long ago, I slogged my way all the way through a K/S pon farr novel which had, besides that, a main action plot and a subplot involving a set of junior crew members. I made myself write at least one page a day, every day. Longhand. It got written piecemeal; so there were big gaps between the scenes. If you can even call them scenes! Bitty wee bits. Eventually I typed the whole thing out, filled in the gaps, and revised it a few times. The first few months took a lot of determination; but, in the end, I got inspired to real speed and wrote several pages a day. I've never gone back to re-read it, and I dare say it isn't very good; but the point is that I did actually finish it.

Once upon a time, almost as long ago, I wrote an entire 22-episode virtual season. Initially, I was just doing "an episode" (and then another, and another); but I quite quickly got the idea of writing a full set. They, too, were written out of order. Eventually I had to decide how to organize the thing and fill in blanks. It took years.

Nowadays, I often find myself daunted approaching a gift exchange assignment that typically finishes up at a mere 3K or so. And it's not the fact that I'm writing to a prompt, either. What's depressing is the fact that I do still have a "big idea" or three; and I just can't get down to working on any of them really.

There is always something else to do. Witness the fact that I'm doing this instead of my worldbuildingex assignment!

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