Writing and Stuff

Well, here's what I think really makes the difference. The Hogwarts story and the Changeling one are written in the first person. Now, I spent probably about 100 hours thinking as Delia, and an insanely high number more thinking as Kathryn. I know them inside and out, I know how they see things, how they think, what their thought processes are. If I put as much time in to plotting out and outlining an original novel, I'd probably find it just as easy. It's not really mind games - perhaps "real" and "fake" are the wrong words, though, "original" and "derivative" might work better, though derivative also has a negative connotation that I don't wish to delve in to.

It takes a lot more energy and creativity to write not just characters, but original descriptions and plots, then it does to write something that is all layed out before me.

And anyway, I feel like it'd be lame to call the Hogwarts story a novel, even though it's technically long enough, because of how relatively little original work it constitutes - it's buzzermccain and saracariad's plot, the characters of multiple people we know, including drake_rocket, drydem, dyrecorn, sapphohestia, closet_gnome, and loads of others...and it's J.K. Rowlings world. I don't think I'm wrong to say that it's not the same as starting up a brand new document where I have only a vague idea of what's going on, and it doesn't surprise me that on the Hogwarts, I could easily write 1500-2k a day, where as I'm having trouble reaching 800 on the new project (though actually today went much better, and though I didn't write more I felt like I COULD have, which is a nice feeling ;) )