Joining the Writing Process Blog Hop
Welcome to the continuing Writing Process Blog Tour where authors are invited to answer the same four questions. My thanks to Joan Leacott who invited me to join the tour group. You all knew you’d have to stop at at least one Tourist Trap, right?
What am I working on?
It’s been a busy 2014 already. Currently I’m working on a contemporary with a fairy tale twist. Hoping to shop this project at Nat’ls in San Antonio in July. I’m also finishing edits on The Bull Rider’s Keeper (releasing from Crimson Romance April 28, 2014).
I’ve got my hands on all three Tourist Trap Mysteries this month. Promotion and blog tour planning for Guidebook to Murder (April 17th), final edits/galleys on Mission to Murder (July 31st,2014), and developmental edits for If the Shoe Kills (November 2014). I love spending time in South Cove with this group. 
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I write small town fiction. Guidebook to Murder is set in a small tourist town on the central California coast, right off Pacific Coast Highway. I’ve always loved the lure of small towns. Well, except as a teenager growing up in one. Then all I wanted was to move to the biggest town I knew, NYC. (Yes, I could have done a PACE salsa commercial.) What I’ve learned over the years is even in the big towns, neighborhoods develop a small town feel when people care about each other.
Why do I write what I do?
Because I can? Honestly, I’ve written a few different genre’s to find my voice. Find the stories that interest me and the characters that won’t leave me alone. I want to write a good story, well told. If that’s happening, who cares what the genre is. I tried to answer this question – I’d never write__________. But I don’t know what I’d put in the blank.
How does your writing process work?
What’s a process? Shannon Butcher came to one of our MoRWA chapter meetings and said she had excel spreadsheets telling her what to write for the next several years. The thought gave me chills. I’m a pantser who’s learning how to plot. I have a note book that I keep loose leaf paper with pages of scribbled notes. Sometimes I forget I’ve made that plot point decision when I’m writing and make a new one. But often, the story tends to follow my random notes and takes me on a journey I didn’t expect. Especially when I keep asking why.
I do goal setting each week. And I plan on writing 1K a day. Some days, that even happens.
Up next Monday are three amazing writers. Two are releasing their debut books this year and one release her debut in 2013.
Chris Cannon lives in Southern Illinois with her husband and her three dogs, Pete the shih-tzu who sleeps on her desk while she writes, Molly the ever-shedding yellow lab, and Tyson the sandwich-stealing German Shepherd Beagle. She believes coffee is the Elixir of Life. Most evenings after work, you can find her sucking down caffeine and writing fire-breathing paranormal adventures. Her Paranormal YA romance, Going Down In Flames comes out April 2014.
www.facebook.com/chriscannonauthor
www.chriscannonauthor.tumblr.com
Award-winning romantic suspense author Claudia Shelton writes stories about alpha heroes and the women strong enough to love them. Her novel, RISK OF A LIFETIME, Entangled Publishing-Ignite, will be out April 28, 2014.
Blog: http://www.claudiawriting.com/blog.html
Website: http://www.claudiawriting.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClaudiaShelton1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaSheltonWriter
Jodi is a Southern paranormal author of the VEILED SECRETS trilogy, out August 2013. She is currently working on her next paranormal series set in the south. She resides in Jonesboro, Arkansas with her handsome husband, brilliant son and a yellow lab who is fond of retrieving turtles when duck season is over.
You can find her on Face book Jodi Vaughn, Author
Follow her on twitter@JodiVaughn1
Check out her website http://jodivaughn.com
