Welcome to my perfumed garden

I actually think I'm the exact opposite to you. Writing to me, is the easy part. Once I'm writing it all just flows and it's a fine and lovely thing. :o) Sorting out the details, the who does what and where is hard and hateful to me. In fic, when I'm writing soley for my own amusement, I rarely plot at all, I start with an idea, work out a vague direction to go in and then just head off on the journey. I have never known the ending of any of my fics before I started them. The only one that's been plotted in advance is the current fic, Blue - simply because it was getting so long and there were so many potential directions for it to take, I just had to sit down and decide where I intended to take it and work it out, chapter by chapter - I really had to impose self-discipline there or it really would never have ended (though it's STILL altering in the writing. I've already changed the identity of the murder victim because when I was writing, something unexpected happened).

Unusually, I knew the ending of Blue before I began because it came out of 2 plot bunnies I'd been nurturing for a couple of years. I had a firm, visual image of the start, at the Academy, and the end or rather, the last couple of chapters and where J&B will be at that point, but everything between those 2 points was a mystery.

The novel is different because it's very long and terribly complex. I've had to plot it quite carefully (although it's already changed and still changing as I write - even the basic premise has now been altered because of what came out of the writing).

I am taking care to keep it more or less on the path, but I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks and I'm still altering and fine tuning my plot as I go. It seems to be the way I write and I've no desire to fight that, really.

So for me, the plot is an elastic thing that I sometimes work on and sometimes don't, knowing it will always change during the writing process. Plot is always second to writing for me because I know, if I keep on writing, the plot will work itself out whereas, if I start with a detailed plot, I know it's going to go out the window inside 3 chapters, making it all a bit of a waste of time. :o)