Welcome to my perfumed garden

Well, I can only speak for myself, of course. So my reasons are totally subjective :-)

The first real WIP I posted to LJ was my third or fourth story, Revolution. I decided to post it as a WIP as an experiment, because I had a very clear plan of the story's structure, which (because it alternated between the present and the past) leant itself well to episodic posting. It was an experiment for me, because I'd never posted a WIP before, and wanted to see if I could carry it off.

Prevous to that, I had been much of the same mind as you - I tinkered with my stuff endlessly before it got posted, writing in a non-linear fashion.

Anyway, to my complete surprise, I found that committing myself to writing in a linear way, ended up producing a far better story. At the time I wrote it, I was more satisfied with Revolution than anything I had previously done. It really forced me to think and plan well ahead, and for some reason, that really worked for me.

Since then, I've posted lots of WIPs in my LJ. And they have turned out, for the most part, to be the stories I am most satisfied with.

Another added benefit is the feedback as you go along. I tend to friends lock (known as 'flock') my LJ, so I know exactly who is reading. I like it that my 'experiments' only go out ot a small-ish number of people. And it is nice to hear what people think - be it good or bad - in that controlled context. It is like having a whole team of betas.

The last, and probably most important reason for me, is that I hate to write in a vaccuum. I love to chat about what I am writing as I go along, and share it with others - even if the final version bears no resemblance to the LJ WIP. I like the sense of immediacy - I finish a part, then post it, then get comments. It's almost as good as haing a PPP here in my house, all the time ;-)