How Do You Write?

Back in the day I often wondered how those dudes write books actually write them? I didn't mean by that whether they use a pen or a pencil, or a computer if you're a techie type. What I meant is, how do they come up with these stories? Do they write them based on their personal experience? Maybe some do, but surely not all. Ask J.K. Rowling if you don't know what I mean. But the point is, does those stories appear in their heads somehow all of a sudden, or do they build up in their minds over time? Even more importantly, do you develop the plot along the way with only a brief theme in hand? Or do you have the skeleton, if you will, in your head first up and just use the events to dress up the story? Those are but a mere snippet of the thoughts galore that was over pouring my brain after reading a book back in the day.

Then I got into blogging, which means writing, and I was surprised.

Bar incidents that happen to me or the occasional well-researched topic, I hardly know what I'll be writing when I start a post. If it is an incident that happened, then I know the beginning, flow and the end, so I dress up the story with words and maybe throw in a couple of imaginary incidents just for the effect. Or if I research on something before I write, then I know what I'm gonna write about and how I'm gonna write that. Sometimes, while I'm on the train, having lunch or even reading something a thought may pop up in my head. Then I think about it, and perhaps try to develop a post in my mind; something like this should be the opening para, I shall write about this, this and this. And if I conclude it this way, it'll have a nice feel to it. By the time I sit down to write, I have this sort of skeleton in mind, and turn it to words. But other than that, most of the time I just open a notepad (Bill's notepad that is - I have only two handwritten blog posts to my credit, ever) and start typing. Just whatever comes to my mind, they will be transformed to words and typed. I add things along the way, and sometimes posts turn out to be something completely different to what I intended at the start. For instance, this post. I was feeling homesick, and had nothing better to do at that time so just started typing whatever comes to my mind and it ended up being a post. Funniest thing is, there have been times that when I had absolutely nothing to write about so opened up the notepad, typed a random key without looking, and then continued from there. Like this one.

So, how do you write?