The Writing Process Blog Hop of 2014
Hi there! This is the Writing Process Blog Hop of 2014, and before I go any further, I want to say thank you to my friend, the beautiful and talented Mary Chris Escobar, for the invitation to the dance. She tagged me in her post on Tuesday night, and so now it’s my turn!
For those of you who aren’t really sure what this shindig is all about, let me explain. Basically, this is a way for readers, and other writers, to get a glimpse – a sneak peek, if you will – into the minds of writers, and to find out how we do it, and why we do it, and why we do it the way we do. The way it works is there are four questions about my writing process that I must answer, just as all of those amazing writers who have gone before me have done. I have to admit that I’ve been fascinated clicking through and reading all the others, but the thought of answering these questions myself is … daunting. Intimidating. Unsettling. Pick one.
Ok, so … here we go:
What am I working on right now?
What am I not working on right now? That’s the way it feels sometimes, even though I have read other entries in this blog hop were the writers are truly amazing, and they really are working on EVERYTHING! So, me and my little list of works in progress just seems like nothing in comparison. But anyway …
I have two projects that I’m currently obsessing over, both are romantic suspense, and both of them are very exciting to me. The first one is a series that I’m calling The Kelly Family Series. It centers around the lives and loves of a family of very dedicated police officers, and I’ve actually been having a lot of fun writing this series because my husband is a retired police officer and he has become a wonderful source of information and inspiration (the stories he tells – OMG!). My plan for this series is to release the first four installments as novellas, and release them all at once (on April 30, 2014), then release a full-length novel in the series one month later (on May 30, 2014). The novellas – which are titled Ethan, Storm, Frankie and Marina – are complete and ready to be uploaded for pre-sale (I just got them back from the formatter two days ago!), so I need to work on that. And I’m just finishing up my first draft of the novel, which is titled Where There’s Smoke, working to get it as close to perfect as possible before sending it off to the editor.
So, that’s ambitious project number one – releasing four novellas at once, followed by a full novel one month later – and I’m really not sure what I was thinking exactly when I bit off such a huge portion of crazy, but I’m smack in the middle of it now so there is no turning back. Wish me luck!
Ambitious project number two is even scarier, but only because it’s more of a gamble. To me anyway. You see, I normally write romantic suspense and contemporary romance. But with this next project I’ll be attempting something I have never tried before … paranormal. [feel free to insert shocked gasps and dramatic music here.]
That’s right. I said the “P” word. It’s out there now, can’t take it back. This is a love story that I have been ruminating over for more than a year now, so even though it’s not my usual forte, I’m going to give it a go and see where it leads. I’m not really approaching it as a paranormal, but more as a romantic suspense where some of the characters just happen to not be fully human. So, we’ll see what happens (chewing on more crazy over here, so again … wish me luck!).
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Wow. What a question. Hmm … [if you smell smoke don't worry, I'm just thinking really hard about this one.]
Ok, so … what I don’t see a whole lot of in much of the romance I read is strong male friendships. Most of the romances I read seem to focus more on the heroine, not so much on the hero. And this wasn’t a conscious thing on my part when I began writing romance, but I have since come to realize that most (if not all) of my work tends to focus more on the hero’s journey rather than the heroine’s. I’m not quite sure why that is or why it’s worked out that way, but I enjoy exploring the male psyche, and I love writing strong male friendships. Now, that’s not to say that I neglect the heroine, because I don’t, and I try to make all of my heroines smart and capable women who don’t “need” a man to complete them or rescue them. But I do tend to write more from the hero’s perspective, I think. That’s how my work differs, I suppose.
Why do I write what I do?
That’s an interesting question. And honestly, I wish I had a better answer for it, but I guess the simple truth is that I just write what I love to read. The great part about that is that I basically just write for my own entertainment. I love my stories because they’re the types of stories that I enjoy reading. But, the down side of that for me (confession time here) is the fact that sometimes I feel like certain people – and by “certain people” I totally mean most of my family members who are sort of churchy – aren’t comfortable reading my work because they’re put off by the spicy nature of the relationships in my stories. The kicker here is that I don’t consider what I write to be erotic romance – far from it actually. But at the same time, I do realize that my love scenes are spicier than some, and yet, not nearly as spicy as others I’ve read. But to answer the question … I just write for me. And the fact that there are readers out there who also enjoy my stories makes writing them so much sweeter.
How does my writing process work?
Well, let me just start by saying that I am a total plotter. I plot out my stories from start to finish before I ever begin. My writing process starts with an idea for a story. And usually it’s a story that’s been playing over and over in my head like a movie – or maybe more like a soap opera – for weeks or even months.
The next step is for me to sit and jot down some very loose notes on my hero and heroine and the basic premise of the story, the plot. In my notes, I will get very detailed in my descriptions of the H/h, because if I can’t picture them, I feel like I don’t know them … like I can’t connect with them. I have to see them in my mind. That’s why I’ve found Pinterest to be an incredibly helpful tool in this regard. I just create a board for whatever book I’m working on, and keep it secret until I’m ready to share it (which usually isn’t until after the book is published), but on this board I’ll keep images of things and people who help me visualize my characters and their world. Now, since moving to Scrivener I don’t necessarily need to utilize Pinterest in this way anymore because I can (and do) just keep all of those images in Scrivener, right there in my files for that particular book, and I can refer to them as I’m writing. But I continue to use Pinterest too because I think readers might find it enjoyable to see what images helped inspire my imagination.
Once I’ve got a pretty good image of my characters in my head, I’ll move on to actually sketching out the plot. With Scrivener (I know, I’m starting to sound like an infomercial), this process is made easy because the program allows you to break your story up into scenes. So, I’ll create my chapter outline and then just go scene by scene within each chapter, plotting out my entire story. Then once I’ve got my outline finished, I’ll start the actual writing. I follow my outline pretty closely, but often times the story or the characters themselves will lead me in another direction. And that’s ok, I just go with it and follow along where it takes me. But when I do this, I must go back and change my outline to fit this new direction. That way I can be sure that I’m still on track, and still headed to the pre-planned HEA destination.
I write in order, from beginning to end. However, often a future scene will come to me and it won’t leave me alone until I get it out of my head and onto the “paper.” For this reason, I keep a separate folder within my Scrivener files that I title Future Scenes, and I’ll label each one (what the scene is, and where it belongs in the story). Then I’ll resume my writing, being sure to insert one of those “already written scenes” from the Future Scenes folder as needed.
On a good day with zero distractions (it does happen occasionally), I can get through an entire chapter in one day. For me, that’s anywhere from 5,000 – 8,000 words. More often than not, that daily word count is much lower, but I do tend to write very quickly. It’s not uncommon for me to churn out an entire first draft in about three weeks. Keep in mind that’s a very rough first draft. And I used to think my process was screwy and I was doing it all wrong until I read this Hugh Howey post – changed my whole way of thinking about my writing process, and let me know that there is no right or wrong way to write.
I write every single day, without fail. Sometimes it’s just for a couple of hours depending on my everyday life, but most of the time it’s more like from morning ’til bedtime, with a few breaks for food and water.
So, that’s me, in a nutshell. My writing process laid bare before you. Please be gentle as you judge me. I am now hereby officially tagging the beautiful and charismatic Tracie Puckett YA Romance author. She will be posting her installment of the Writing Process Blog Hop on Friday. Until then, here are the links of a few others who have gone before. Fascinating reading!
Found this on Pinterest. Nora Roberts’ sage advice on writing.
Audra North
A L Parks
Alexandra Haughton
Petra Grayson
Jenne Hardt
Madi Merek
Rebecca Grace Allen
Amy Jo Cousins
Lore Ree
Julia Kelly
Alexis Anne
Mary Chris Escobar
