I write -- when I write -- in a fugue of intense concentration at the laptop until I reach the breaking point of near insanity or complete, cramped fatigue. (Hmmm... maybe I have just had a clue as to why I cannot seem to make myself sit down and write... very interesting...)

Like Amanda, when I tackle (and yeah...I mean 'tackle') poetry I like to use a #2 Pencil -- preferably a Ticonderoga (they just feel good) -- in a notebook... but I'll take any scrap of paper and have even pressed old receipts into service.

I think my hand gets too cramped trying to write out prose fiction longhand. The short bursts of actual writing coupled with the long, drawn-out plotting and planning of that 'just so wording' that goes into poetry writing (well, at least my poetry writing...) seems better served by the tactile pleasure of holding a pencil in hand.

As with everything else in my world, I'm a bit OCD about writing stories, and feel that I have to research until I'm a babbling idiot -- even if none of it ever goes into the story. I need to find a way to rein that tendency in, as I find (especially recently) that I'm all research and no writing.

I won't lie: I've reached a rough patch in my creative pursuits -- so rough that I'm ready to throw in the towel and say, 'Agghhh. Nice work if you can get it.' because 'never trying and thus having only the suspicion that I stink up the joint' is masquerading tantalizingly as better than 'trying and removing all doubt'...

But I promise not to be a whiney self-absorbed brat about it ;-)