Writing Process Blog Tour

Forget the “what happens on tour stays on tour” rule. On this tour, dauntless writers lift the veil on their writing process in a game of blog tag. YA/NA author and fellow 2014 Golden Heart finalist Amy DeLuca, dared Jessica Ruddick, AE Jones, and me to get on board.

Oops -- sorry, Sean Bean. I'm breaking that rule now...

What am I currently working on?

I recently sold my debut novel, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE, to Bloomsbury, and I’m looking forward to my editor’s revision letter. :) In the meantime, I’m working on a new YA contemporary that combines two of my favourite subjects – horses and music. I’ve just cryogenically frozen two YA partials, one of which is a follow-up to AFTERLIFE. The other is a SF thriller.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Today’s YAs are broad in scope, so it’s hard for me to answer this. You’ll find historicals, paranormals, contemporaries, medievals, westerns, time-travels, steampunks, dystopians and everything in between. The range is as diverse as the teen audience, and that’s what I find so exciting about it. I’d class my books as paranormal-light – magical reality with a good dose of humour. I tend to write heroines and heroes who might be considered a little nerdy, a little shy, a lot single-minded. But as their stories progress, they grow more comfortable in their skins. Their perceived weaknesses are actually the things that make them strong.

Why do I write what I write?

It’s a compulsion! I just love writing from the point of view of young people trying to make sense of the world in which they live. When I first started writing, I was in my early teens and heavily under the influence of Christopher Pike and Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High series. I wanted to write the kind of stories I liked to read and could relate to. Years after I graduated from high school, I penned a “grown-up” women’s fiction book. I'll be honest -- I worked hard on it, but that manuscript sucked like nothing else. Yet, it was invaluable for two reasons. One, it was the first book I ever completed. As every writer knows, finishing your first book is a major milestone and confidence booster. And two, a flashback scene made me realise my heart was in writing YA.

How does my individual writing process work?

It really changes from book to book. I started off as a panster (that is, writing by the seat of my pants without a flight plan). Then I found, in order to avoid obstacles like saggy middles, it’s actually quite helpful to write an outline first. The fourth book I wrote, GIVING UP THE GHOSTS (aka GHOST-RIDDEN), a 2010 GH finalist, was plotted out in its entirety first. I scribbled a short summary for each of the twenty-odd chapters and then took off from there. For THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE, I had a vague idea, wrote the first couple of chapters and then plotted the rest of the book. Whatever works, I say! I’m not wedded to any one method.

When it comes down to the actual writing, I’m easily distracted by TV, music, and this cat gif Tumblr page. So I have to rely on a program called Freedom that prevents me from accessing emails and the Net on my laptop. I’ve talked about it so often people are beginning to think I’m on the payroll!

And there you have it – everything you wanted to know about my writing process. Thanks again to Amy DeLuca for nominating me.

I now pass the baton to another lovely 2014 Golden Heart finalist, Åsa Maria Bradley, who's making waves in paranormal romance fiction. Along with New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Zanetti, she'll be presenting an unmissable workshop at RWA's San Antonio conference this July: Untie Your Tongue: How to Lead Successful Workshops and Author Events with Confidence. Catch Åsa's writing process blog post next Monday, June 16.

 

Åsa Maria Bradley

Asa Maria Bradley writes paranormal romance featuring Vikings and Valkyries who fight to save humanity from Ragnarök—the gods' and goddesses’ final battle and the end of the world. She grew up in Sweden, surrounded by archeology and history steeped in Norse mythology. Her essays and articles have appeared in a variety of magazines and the anthology FEMALE NOMAD AND FRIENDS: TALES OF BREAKING FREE AND BREAKING BREAD AROUND THE WORLD (Three River Press, Random House). She lives in Washington State with her British husband and a used dog of indeterminate breed. Visit her at www.AsaMariaBradley.com.