Writing Habits

Dear Wal,

I write almost every day, whether it be on this blog, my fanfiction/western/action/fantasy, whatever. I'm always writing, and always reading. No matter how busy I am, I always find time to write. I think it's a good thing to have a good, solid writing habits. Now, for how I write when I write, there is no rhythm or reason to it what-so-ever. Sometimes I write on the computer, sometimes in a notebook, sometimes with a pen, sometimes with a pencil. It doesn't make much sense. I guess it speaks to how the interior of my mind functions; no semblance of a pattern, on the edge of insanity.

I really fell into the writing every day habit during Nanowrimo, when, I'm proud to say, I actually made it to 50,000 with my sci-fi novel. That was a long, hard battle, and the novel that came out the other side was complete crap. I scrapped it completely, and someday I'll rewrite it. After that I wrote Tom's origin, or tried to. I didn't have enough background to understand how the criminal element works, and he didn't have a good nemesis. As a result, that story's been tarnished in my mind and I haven't touched it for months, even though I know the story is fantastic except for just the one part that I screwed up. I hate it when that happens. I turned completely around after that and wrote a western that I still haven't finished, and now I'm back on the fanfiction again. Needless to say, I write a lot of different stuff.
I've noticed that I start to flail around 12,000 words. Before I had the will to plow through, I always got shut down around 12,000 words in Nanowrimo, and in my first novel I tried to write (it went through around 30 re-writes, and ended up being a short story about a page and a half) the same thing happened. I hate the middles of stories and transitions, even things as simple as between scenes. They drive me completely crazy. I started out writing my fanfiction in scenes, and I guess that trained me to cut out the transitions in between.
I get mired down the most when I'm writing on the computer, because I can go back and re-write a scene fifty times. I usually end up switching my notebook at that point, because I can't easily go back and re-do things, especially when writing with a pen. It helps me just get over it and keep on writing. Other times I'll screw up some tiny detail during a transition that multiplies itself in a massive problem when I'm writing on paper because I didn't fix it out of laziness or simply because I didn't notice it until it was a massive snarling monster on my paper. At those times, it helps to be able to switch to the computer and re-work a scene.
It's a very delicate balance.

Favorite Writing Materials

I have this thing with notebooks. I'm incredibly picky. If a notebook isn't right, I know after the first few pages. It's something in the feel of the pages, the weight of the book and the way it opens and lays on my lap/table. I like a notebook that has a flexible cover and a rigid spine with thick pages. For the most part, I don't do spiral bound notebooks. I don't know why, but they just don't sit right. However, one of my favorite notebook of all time, the notebook where it all began as I always say, is a spiral bound notebook. It's the notebook where I started my fanfiction. I haven't been able to find it's like anywhere, and the closest I can find is this brand of notebooks from Staples.
Another notebook of mine that I absolutely loved was also from Staples, and I haven't even been able to find anything similar. It's a plain black leatherbound notebook with creamy, thick pages. I wrote a huge chunk of fanfiction in that as well. It was a gift from my best friend, along with this pencil which has to be my favorite writing pencil of all time before I switched to these pens. Here's another of my favorite notebooks, again a gift from my best friend, that harbored the end of Tom's origin and it's sequel.

/endrant