Writing Process Blog Hop
My writing process is open to all.
This is a somewhat different post, as I am (for the first time! Sound the trumpets!) participating in a Blog Hop. I got a tag from Alex Karola, I’ll answer a few questions, and then I will tag three other folks to continue the chain. Those three folks, who I will mention again at the end are Jessica Bloczynski, Katrin Hollister, and MirielOfGisborne.
Without further ado, here are the questions.
1. What am I working on?
Egad, it feels like, what am I not working on? I have a WIP which is wholly original, that I am going to submit to my publisher. If all goes well, it’ll be a trilogy. Well, it’ll be a trilogy whether it gets an acceptance for publication or not. But I’ll be the first to admit that it could use some tightening.
I’ve got the Barnstorming series. It has stalled recently, in favor of schoolwork, wholly original work, and various short prompted stories. I have a wholly original work in progress for Wattpad. However, I haven’t posted it yet but I’d like some more chapters before I start. I have The Social Media Guide for Wattpad. The draft is technically done, but I’m always finding more to say.
Hence the answer is – ta da! – lots of stuff.
2. How is my work different from others of its genre?
I tend to add a philosophical bent to a lot of my work. Without getting into the details of what I want to present to my publisher, one of the underlying themes is: what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be sentient/intelligent? I think when we start to answer those questions, we will begin to understand our own selves better. Plus I like to explore that inner essence (I’m mainly a science fiction author), and that generally isn’t explored while stars and planets are being explored. I try to change that.
3. Why do I write what I do?
Part of it is for my own purposes; I try to write what appeals to me as a reader.
Part of it is also for the purpose of creating art. I like to be creative. A part of it is also to slip some philosophy in there. I think the study of thought and thinking is going by the boards. I see people spouting stuff all the time and it has no basis and no foundation. It’s not philosophy; it’s just a lot of posturing. The real thing is becoming rare. This is not to say that I’m busily slipping philosophy into my works, much like someone might grind up carrots and shovel them into burgers in order to stealthily get people to eat healthier. Rather, it’s a part of the dish/story. Read it for the science fiction, read it for the philosophy, read it for both. I like to think readers will get something out of it, regardless of their preferences or foci.
4. How does my writing process work?
I am naturally overly organized and it wouldn’t shock me if I were OCD as well. I keep an enormously long timeline (which is published on the site, in pieces) and that is an incredible help. Also, I am able to do things like look at it to determine who is older than whom, who could meet, etc. I also keep a long list of every character I have ever made. I pair these characters with various actors and actresses. For canon, of course, it’s whoever is the correct actor. For originals, I make judgments, and those eventually start to inform my work. E. g. if a character is short, that decides a few things but generally not major plot points.
I keep an idea bank, too, and sometimes it’s painfully scant. E. g. the Daranaean Emergence series was started with a two-word phrase: smart kangaroos. When I have an interesting dream, an idea for a name, a title, a series, a story, I type all of those into the bank. I do answer prompts. But the bank helps when I am really stuck.
More about writing process
For longer works, I tend to flesh out the ideas, but I don’t go with a formal story line. I tend to have ideas of where I want to go, though, or sometimes scenes play out in my head. Funny thing is, sometimes a scene that I have been thinking of for a long time can end up far shorter than I had thought. In Reflections Down a Corridor, I had a vision of Jay swimming, swimming, swimming. That whole scene is maybe a few pages long, yet I thought about it for months. Was I sick of it? I can’t honestly say.
Sometimes I write scenes in order. Sometimes, they aren’t, although usually that’s because they are standalone short stories. But some of that is the fault of the timeline. I have ideas of where I’m going with this or that, and I need to go through X to get to Y so I’ll sometimes write Y and then realize, oops, I’d better prefigure that with X.
Blame Fortune and Reversal, too, as both of those stories, along with The Cure is Worse than the Disease and Release, have a lot of little gold nuggets in them that can be mined for even more stories. I’m finding that Intolerance has become a gold mine, as well.
Upshot
And there’s my stop on the blog hop.
Please tune into the following bloggers as they continue the process:
I hope you like the plot bunny, at left, who is resting from hopping.
Thank you for reading!
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