The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.

I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline.

It was the easiest research, just a lot of fun.

I write a very rough first draft of every chapter, then I rewrite every chapter. I try to get it down in the first rewrite, but some chapters I can't get quite right the third time. There are some I go over and over and over again.

I wrote an outline. I wrote a rough draft. And then I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote. And that's the way you were supposed to write plays.

When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper.