From: Raymond E. Feist
Date: 28 August 1997
This is the sort of question only a non-writer would ask. Writing is a very organic process and there's no relationship to the reading experience. Sometimes the stuff that reads the most fun is the pain-in-the-ass stuff to write. Sometimes the stuff you take for granted is stuff the writer bled over. Other times the stuff that seems the most difficult is the easiest to write. You never know from day to day.
A scene that's killing you at 11 pm the night before suddenly turns into a walk in the park after a good night's sleep and a cup of coffee.
Other times you never get it right.
So, the answer is pretty much, you can't generalize based on chracter, dialogue, type of scene, etc.
It's all writing.
Best, R.E.F.
From: Raymond E. Feist
Date: 29 August 1997
The point I was trying to make was that it was all organic, and that you don't know what you have until after the fact.
For example, I've been blasting along, having done about 350 pages in the last 30 days, and everything was looking very tasty until I hit the 2nd to the last chapter yesterday. It really sucks. Now, I've had 24 hours to
rethink it, and after the fact it only needs 4 or 5 pages rewritten out of the 26 pages in the chapter.
DURING the process of writing, it was all about the same.
When I finally read the draft, then there are things I like that ammuse me or move me or whatever. But DURING the process I don't have any sense of any one thing being more fun, less enjoyable, etc.
As for "comes easy," it's alike any other skill; you mave to practice. I think a huge reason there's a tradition of "journalists who became novelists," is due to the simple fact that folks from Mark Twain to Earnest Hemming were working at writing, not doing other things.
I can't stress enough to people who send me letters (especially youngsters in college or high school) who start off with, "I've been hammering this project of mine for THREE months now, and I can't seem to . . ." The answer is "start bitching when you've been hammering it for three years and you still can't get it."
Best, R.E.F
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