Hi there.

One of greatest personal challenges in my life is writing (OK maybe that's a bit of an exagerration, but it's pretty tough). It isn’t because I find it difficult to get the words out or that I’m too critical of myself; it’s because of my situation. See, I’m still pretty young. I go to school so, as you might imagine, I’m still living at home. Luckily I have no annoying younger siblings to disrupt my flow, but that doesn’t mean I’m free to write. The computer that I write on is located in the kitchen purely for the reason that powers that be dictate that “there are no secrets in this house”. Well, I’m afraid there are. There is usually someone hovering around intent on viewing what I’m up to, so I keep several tabs open for when I want something to vanish with a click and I get somewhat angry when people deliberately attempt to pry. Actually, as I write, something has just occurred to me- why don’t I buy a laptop? I think I will do shortly. It’ll give me a lot more freedom to conduct my scribblings in peace.
But I digress. My story ideas always come to me in one of two places- the shower or in bed those few minutes between getting in and falling to sleep. If I’ve a lot on my mind, sometimes I jot down the ideas I have. Usually, a story just drifts into my head, fully formed so if I do go to write it down, I give a summary of the whole story. It isn’t that I use outlines; it’s just to get the idea down before it disappears. More often though, I just store the stories in my head until the opportunity arrives to do something with them. I find it easy to spill the story from my head onto the page. The trouble is getting the opportunity to do so. I try to snatch an odd quarter of an hour here and there. Some times are easier than others to get working.
Because I live in the absolute middle of nowhere, I can’t very well set my stories locally. I usually set them in places I’d like to visit or that conjure up interesting images- London, New York, Paris (though I have been there), San Francisco, Seattle etc. This is made far easier by a wacky invention I use called the internet. I have an idea of the places I’m looking for and establish exactly where they are using Google Maps or something similar. I find that nothing lends an air of authenticity better than accurate place names and descriptions of the locale. I don’t let missing details ruin my flow. When I’m writing, I’ll usually fill in place names with an XXXXX or a YYYYY, then I’ll go back later and look them up. In fact, by this method, I could almost set a story in any city, filling in the details later. It’s easier though, to set stories in the US because of the TV shows and films that I watch. This gives me a better feel for the dialogue and locations too.
I like my characters to have some unusual quirk or feature. I’m not a great believer in writing about everymen or everywomen. They usually have an interesting occupation or personal trouble and past. I’m not exactly brilliant at dialogue so I try to keep it to a minimum (in real life as well as in my stories).
When I’ve finished writing, I usually leave a couple of days between completion and final edit. I read back over my work and try find better ways of saying things and reducing the verbosity. Generally, I edit as I write, so the final edit doesn’t take long.
Hopefully, it’s something of an insight into my work and methods. I like to understand how other people work- their methods and so on and this is my take on the challenge of writing.