Day 3 – My Writing Process

All I did today was write. Guess it would make sense to describe how I do that, although I’m not sure how many people actually give a shit. Time to find out.

First of all, I’m a pantser, not a plotter. I don’t write outlines. I don’t know the endings of my stories. I come up with an idea, like a living darkness that swallows people whole, conjure some characters, and toss it all together to see what happens.

The story unfolds as I write it. I usually don’t know what will happen more than a few pages ahead of time and sometimes not until I’m actually writing it. This keeps me from getting bored when I’m working on a book. If I already know what’s coming next, I don’t enjoy the creative process. At all.

Pantsers can often meander too far off course. Sometimes we get stuck and don’t finish a story. That’s happened to me more times than I care to admit. But I don’t get bored with my stuff, so there’s that.

With that out of the way, I can tell you a bit about my actual daily writing process. It’s simple, but effective when I actually sit down and do it.

First, I go into my office so that I’m alone. I can write with other people around me, but I’m a lot slower. Being alone makes a big difference for me. If I’m not hearing something about plastic surgery nightmares from the show my wife is watching, I get a lot more done.

Second, I put on music to drown out background noise from outside. It’s not something that I actively listen to while writing, but it does seep in during lulls when I’m contemplating things (procrastinating). Lately, I’ve been trying to listen to one album through the creation of an entire book. Sometimes it works, sometimes it gets really old. When I write Asher Benson books, I exclusively listen to the album Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Black Stone Cherry. The ups and downs of the album, the equal parts sad and fun lyrics, really resonates with me and the Ash character. It’s a perfect foundation for writing such a broken person. (Don’t ask what I’m writing Decayed to, haha.)

Third, I reread the last page or so of my manuscript. This helps me remember exactly what was happening in the scene and place me there. I visualize the setting, the characters, and everything else before I start up again.

Fourth, I set a timer for 35 minutes. It’s just a little cheap one I stole from the kitchen. Don’t tell The Tall One. While that timer is ticking by, I don’t do anything else but write. I don’t check my phone. I don’t look at Facebook or Twitter. I don’t let my dogs outside to piss. For 35 minutes, I write my ass off. In that amount of time, I average 1000 to 1200 words. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

Then I take a break. I aim for 15 or 20 minutes. Sometimes it ends up being a couple of days. Hey, that’s why I wanted to use this blog for accountability. After I sit back down, I rinse and repeat. 80 sessions later, I’m done. Ravaged took a month to finish. Asher’s War was almost a year.

Now for the good stuff. Today, in two different sessions, I wrote 2681 words in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 62116.

Oh, I also draw a pentagram in the middle of the road outside my house and conjure a demon to help with my creativity. Almost forgot to mention that part.

The post Day 3 – My Writing Process appeared first on Jason Brant.