Tagged for a Blog Hop by Tianna Holley

Author Tianna Holley tagged me on Twitter for a blog hop, and you can find her answers to these questions on her blog. You can also find her on Twitter as @holley_tianna (seriously–follow her! ). Here are my answers to the questions, and now I will find five random authors on Twitter to continue the hop. Should be fun reaching out randomly to others and seeing what everyone has to say!

What are You Writing?

Right now, I am in the process of editing a young adult fantasy entitled Fairy, Texas (due out in 2014 from Solstice Shadows Publishing); editing a contemporary romance; and writing the sequel to Waking Up Dead. I’ve also started sketching out ideas for several other novels including a sequel to my forthcoming novel Legally Undead (World Weaver Press, 2014) and another contemporary romance. I have more ideas than I have time to write!

How Does This Differ From Your Last Work?

I used to write one novel at a time! Also, I just recently started writing contemporary romance novels; I’m in the process of learning all of the tropes and general guidelines for category romance novels. But the biggest difference is that I started my most recent novels by putting together synopses. By nature I’m a seat-of-my-pants kind of writer (a “pantser” in NaNoWriMo terms!), but I’m enjoying the process of figuring out the story ahead of time.

As for how writing a sequel differs from writing the first novel in the series? In the sequel to Waking Up Dead, Callie continues to solve mysteries–but we learn more about her own life and the lives of her friends. I’m enjoying the chance to make the characters deeper; I feel like I spent the first novel just barely getting to know Callie, Ashara, Maw-Maw, and Stephen!

Why Do You Write?

I write because if I didn’t, I might wither and die. In some ways, it hardly matters if other people read my books–I write them because I love getting lost in the story, in other people’s worlds and thoughts and dreams and problems and successes. If other people like what I write, it’s an exciting bonus.

What is Your Writing Process?

I have an office that I use for all my work: academic writing, fiction writing, editing, and online teaching. My desk is against a window so I can see outside. I’m surrounded by books and papers. I write directly on my laptop, but when I get stuck, I sometimes switch to handwriting; this seems to shift my brain onto a different track and helps me get over writer’s block. I don’t have a set time that I write, but I try to write every day, whether it’s academic writing, fiction, or my blog.

When I write fiction, I tend to think in “scenes.” Thinking in scenes means that I often write scenes out of order. When that happens, I use a separate file from the primary one and shuffle the scenes around as necessary. But the single biggest thing that I do to write? It’s narrating. I have an internal monologue—and sometimes dialogue–going on all the time. I think in words; when I have a mental picture, I practice translating it into words in my mind. I tell myself stories and I work out plot lines and I figure out arguments to make about literature. I think about the words to use to explain writing to my classes and I practice describing my surroundings. I think in my characters’ voices and in my own voice. When I get blocked, I go for a walk and let my characters take over for a while until I have another scene.

What I’ve learned in all my years of teaching writing is that writing is a deeply personal process; everyone has different writing rituals, and those rituals can change over time. I used to have to have a clean space in which to write. Now I just need a place to put my laptop (having a three-year-old child might have influenced that change). I used to have to set rules for myself: writing two hours a day, not going out to the pool in the summer until I had written three pages, and so on. I still use those when I’m stuck or resenting the need to write, but these days, the only rule I have for myself is this: Just write.