What's the hardest part to write?

It certainly does -- I never thought of creating lists of different words to just keep handy (I've just had my online thesaurus open the whole time, but that gets really cumbersome.) Just for that idea, thank you

I don't really describe people physically either, except indirectly, like through another character's eyes. Doing so doesn't appeal to me, don't know why. So I appreciate that you don't, actually. Sometimes I read a story and get to the description and the person is described totally differently from what I pictured, and it jars me.

Also, I only ever have one story going at a time. Doing several at once is amazing, I don't think I could. (I only read one book at once, too, but several people in my family like to have ten books going at once...)

For me the hardest part is trying to think of a reason for the spanking that is unique, just a little different from the other stories I have written. Does not have to be much different and sometimes it is just not possible, but it makes my stories long in coming because I try my best to be different. Different from what I have written before, not necessarily of what others have written.

That is the reason why for example I wrote about a relationship between two guys, even though it was one of their sisters doing the spankings. Other stories about spankings not being the be all and end all by creating solutions for everything, made me come up with stories like Spanking Cannot Solve Everything. I have also created a few M/F stories that are beyond my usual genre but like John's Campaign for example just create a new setting for me.

I don't go into much physical descriptions of my characters, perhaps one reason I never ever come close in the previous Challenge series, but I like to leave it up to the readers imagination. Unfortunate there are only so many ways to describe a spanking and I am sure all of them have been used many times. I don't recall ever using such words as 'ouch' or 'ow' in a repeating way, but not in the my last year or so as I find I usually ignore it in other stories so why put it in mine.

I have given up on serials or series as they are a lot of additional work. At times I get stuck on the number of views and comments and it can be depressing to me to see a excellent series go from high on the first part and almost nothing on the last one. My latest stories about 'Danny' have done well as single stories compared to the 'Danny' series I submitted several months previous. I know I should not be stuck on stats, but I am a math person and that is all I will say. Not saying I will not write more serials or series, just hard to for me to get my mind ready to do it.

My last comment is that I like to tie in my title with the last paragraph in the story just to show a relationship, and although that may seem easy, at times it is not.

CS

I'm the opposite - I always have at least half a dozen semi-written stories on the stocks. No great achievement, I don't feel - it's simply that I'll get an idea for a story, begin writing it then either I run out of time or inspiration starts to flag, so I stick it into the 'unfinished stories' file to return to later. Some stories will languish there for years, poor things....

This is where the Challenges often come in useful: they might make me think, 'Oh, hey, yes, I've got a half-written story that could fit that'. Or at least that it can be made to fit, given a little tweak. And as a freelance writer, I find deadlines always give me that extra touch of motivation.

As an academic, what is this thing, "deadline", of which you speak?

One thing I forgot to mention earlier. If you're going to write a series, finish it internally before submitting it. I made the mistake of sending the first few parts of what wound up an 11-12 part series to be published before I'd figured out all the details of how exactly it was gonna end. I then sent a couple more chapters/week after that.

Unfortunately, since I worked on it piecemeal, somewhere around part 7-8 several people commented on a logical flaw that totally contradicted what I'd said in an earlier part. So I had to do some tap dancing in the remaining parts to sorta explain away the error. If I'd written the whole thing and then read it for consistency before submitting it that problem could have been avoided.

I have less interest in doing new series since the readership seems to nosedive after the 1st part. Even if you do a 2 part story, half the audience doesn't read the 2nd part. But some people don't want to read long stories, so if you just make it a single story they may not read it because it's 8,000 words. I guess there's no perfect solution.

That leads into the other point I forgot to mention, which is to double-check your work before you submit it. A couple of months ago I had a story where I changed one of the character's names at the last minute. I made the mistake of assuming "Replace All" in Word took care of it since it showed a number of revisions. Unfortunately, there were 2 it didn't change and I didn't check it closely enough, so I got a couple of comments asking if the character was named xxx or yyy?

And as part of my double-checking I try to cull down extraneous words. If you look, I tend to write longer stories, but a 5,000 word story probably had about 5,600 words in the initial draft before I started chopping. There are too many times where I use 5 words to describe something that can be done in 2-3 words; over time that impacts the total number of words readers have to weed through.

I usually find that my stories flow naturally from beginning to conclusion (not bragging honestly), but that's how it happens for me, mostly like a fever, consuming me until I get it written down. Sometimes I have an idea that starts as just that, 'an idea', but as soon as I begin writing, it simply develops naturally, one of the mysteries of creative writing. Other times, I have already mentally mapped out the whole plot in my mind before sitting at the computer, so I know where it's going, just work on the detail. Whenever I find it hard to write, I stop, put it down and return when inspiration bites again. It is fascinating to me how a plot develops, twists and turns, sometimes in a direction I never imagined, but, this is 'inspiration'.
With regard to serials, I admit there is sense in writing the whole thing before submission, except that I am often prompted by a comment on a part that plants a seed of an idea that I then develop into the story, so I also feel it has merit to submit as you go along. I note too, that readership definitely diminishes as a serial goes on, a sad fact, I know, but reality.

Yes comments are very helpful. I know a lot of stories for me came from people commenting"wouldn't it be great if..." Sometimes it prompts a sequel and other times it becomes the gist of an unrelated story.

Elorac: your entire first paragraph, yes, couldn't agree more. That's exactly how it works for me too. I haven't (so far) "tried" to write anything, I'm not even sure I could. Anytime I try to think of a plot, nothing comes to me. Instead, I get an unexpected mental picture and write it down feverishly, like you said, forgetting to eat and shower, until it's done. Sometimes this causes me to fall behind in my real work But it's so much fun though.

Burgundy: ah, we are one of kind, I fully recognise the feverish obsessing and neglecting of other duties when I get 'the bug'. I too, do not 'try' to write anything, an idea will pop into my head and the urge to write overrides everything else. The times I am on the last minute going to work because I have been writing, or spending time here!
It is fun though, and extremely rewarding, especially when my efforts and contributions thrill someone else.

Yes, it's very fulfilling If even one person besides me enjoys reading something I've written, I'm happy. I'd still write it, just for fun, for my own sake, but it's even nicer if someone else likes it too. So that my temporary starvation and bad hygiene aren't for naught...