How I Write #1 - Words on the Text Document.

The following wall of text is an informal explanation of how I go about writing my chapters. You know, for the two or three of you who are curious about such things. I like to be transparent with who I am, and how I do things. I know it's nothing special, but here's how I typically go about writing a new chapter.

Being the terrible procrastinator I am, the hardest part of writing a new chapter of just about any story, is getting started. I work five days a week, getting up at five and coming home at two-thirty. I usually have little to no drive when I get home.

My days off are a different story.

After getting up and doing my internets for the morning, I get to work on what I call the skeleton of the chapter. (I like to be morbid about writing, what can I say?) The skeleton has very poor grammar, broken flow, and inconsistencies. Sometimes, whole limbs are discarded and rewritten if I don't like how it feels. Writing the skeleton is the bulkiest chunk of writing I do, anywhere from 3-6k words over the course of the day. Most of a chapter is written when I do the skeleton, and I try and get it done in one go. Give or take hour long breaks through the day.

The following is a typical skeleton:

The three of them exchanged glances, not sure how to proceed now that Luna hwas left. Twilight looked to Tell Tale, as if expecting him to offer some adived. All he did was sit, book open as he occastioanly glanced to the fillies.

“Trixie doesn't get it.” Trixie said as she looked to the stone. “Does that mean only tow of us can touch it? I mean, that doesn't seem fair.” She added.

So now I have a skeleton. Time to add some meat to it. This part is significantly easier for me to manage on my working days, as the hardest part of writing a new chapter is now behind me. I'm over the hill, as it were. Over the next two or three days, I come back to what I've written, and make it not terrible. I add a lot to it; there's rarely a paragraph that isn't touched up on. I fix flow, add emotion, address who's speaking, add descriptions, fix what poor grammar I catch, remove word repetition, and most importantly, add something new that I came up with while at work.

I typically go over the whole chapter twice during the meat phase, and when it's done I have something more like this:

The three of them exchanged concerned glances, not sure how to proceed now that Luna had left. Twilight looked to Tell Tale, as if expecting him to offer some advice. All he did was sit in his chair, book open as he occasionally glanced to them. Twilight then looked to her friends, before approaching the stallion.

“Sir Tell Tale-”

“I'm sorry Twilight,” he quickly replied, “But the time for questions has passed. You know the rules, just solve it as best you can. Don't worry, I have faith in you,” he added with a reassuring smile, making Twilight glance to the side as Trixie frowned at the rock.

“Trixie doesn't get it,” she said. “Does that mean only two of us can touch it? Trixie doesn't think that's fair!”

Once I'm satisfied with this phase, it's usually the day before the chapter will be uploaded. At this point, the chapter is roughly mostly finished, but there's always room for improvement.

The day I upload is when the rest is added, skin and clothes. I go over the entire chapter one more time, trying to catch any errors and hiccups. It's at this point where I also add last minute additions. Once all that is done, I go over it one last time, on FIMFiction. It's usually at this point where I settle on the chapter's title, and try and think of some sort of AN to amuse you.

And when it's four-thirty, I upload. And that's how a new chapter is born!

Ideally, I go from a collection of footnotes to a complete chapter in five days. Sometimes I end up wasting a bulk day doing other things with my life, like playing Skyrim or D&D.

So yeah, that's my boring writing process. My brainstorming process is probably my more involved task. I have more floating in my head about the Trioverse then I can over hope to write, which is sad to say.

Anyway, hope a few of you found this amusing. I'll probably post a “How I Write” blog on how I do story layout next. Maybe. I'm fickle, which can be annoying to others. Sorry.

Also, this entire writing process was applied to this blog post. I can't help but find that amusing in some way.