Cez
Cez asked Naomi Novik:

Was Temeraire the first story you finished? Did you also write countless beginnings before actually settling down to one?

Naomi Novik I'd written fanfic for ~10 years and worked on NWN before, but Temeraire was the first novel I finished, yes. (I noodled one other a few months earlier, but it died on the vine -- too much planning, not enough gut).

I wrote one opening where Laurence has just found the egg, and then revised once -- but before the first 10K words were done, I had the opening in much its present form. I pretty much knew that I was happy with it, excited, and wanted to keep going. This varies from person to person, but if I don't have the urge to keep going rather than fix what I have, that generally means I don't have the ~spark~ and I tend to throw it out wholesale and find something else.
Naomi Novik
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