Q: What is your favourite part of writing?
A: To bend the question a little, there are two things I like most about writing. One is the sheer alchemy of creation, selecting and combining elements from the buffet that is the English language in order to craft something entirely new. I feel particularly fortunate that English is a language so rich with synonyms and with so much scope for style and authorial selection in terms of sentence order, for the sheer opportunity of innovation that this offers the writer.
My other favourite part of writing is the editing process. I’m a firm believer in the ‘draft zero’ approach, writing the first full-length version of a piece without editing at all during the process, then using subsequent revisions to shape and form the story. It feels as satisfying to carve, arrange and improve a piece of fiction during the editing process as I assume it must feel to sculpt — except with writing, I’m using a medium that I find myself far more fluent in than stone, metal, or clay.
L.J. Wetherby’s story “A Wizard Comes to Shorehaven”
in Metaphorosis Friday, 6 August 2021.
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