One of my wonderful and
talented writer buddies, Jennifer Bernard, who writes about sexy Firemen,
tagged me to be part of this fun Writing Process Blog Hop. If you want to know
more about her Firemen and upcoming work check out her website at http://www.jenniferbernard.net/
1. What am I working on right now?
Right now I am working on
a historical set in the 7th century. It's a harrowing account about a young
woman uprooted from her home and taken on a journey to the edge of the earth.
2. How does my work differ from others in the genre?
My writing doesn’t fit
exactly in any genre. This makes it difficult to market. I have strong romantic
elements in my work but it is not dyed in the wool romance. I have written
about Vampires, Time travelers, Aliens and Amazon Warriors that have life
changing love affairs, but the story might be ultra violent, gritty or perhaps everyone
dies at the end. Somewhere out there my
genre is waiting to embrace me and hopefully there will be an eager group of
readers waiting for something that doesn’t fit quite fit into the niches that
are currently present.
3. Why do I write what I do?
I let my imagination lead
me when I write. Which is probably why I haven’t written a genre specific work
yet. I really enjoy the journeys my stories take me on. I have learned to
Fence, studied planetary sciences, read ancient literature, history, and more.
All of this has been cultivated in order to serve my stories and define who my characters
are. It has enriched my world and given me much happiness to create these works.
I have learned so much from my characters about myself and who I want to be.
4. How does my writing process work?
Sometimes a scene may come
to me from hearing a song, watching a movie or a conversation with a friend.
This story in particular came from hearing a song. The imagery in the song
created a scene in my head, it rolled around for a few days and at some point I
started the central casting session. What do they look like? What are they
saying? The particular scene that inspired the story doesn’t happen until chapter
twenty in the current draft.
The drafting process
begins with the basic idea in two or three pages, with the writing style of an
eight year old, as punctuation is an after thought. Then I start fleshing out
scenes, the story changes a lot in this process. I may be three drafts in
before I think it is ready to be read. The first person to read my stuff is one
of my oldest and dearest friends. Over the last twenty years she’s read my
writing in its raw, basic, crummy form and encouraged me to keep at it. I am so
grateful for her. I listen to her and make changes. After that I send it to one
of my wonderful critique pals.
If the story is long like
the one I am working on, I will take a break, or sometimes run into a wall and
then I go back to the beginning and start the fine-tuning. The current story has
a way to go before I find the end. Taking this time to go back helps me to
weave in elements that come up later.
Another thing I do during
this process is keep track of my chapters in a separate document. Each chapter
has a brief description so I can watch for repetition and see what part of the
day the action is happening. I really need to keep track of sunrises and sunsets
in this story due to navigation issues and timelines.
I love to listen to music
while I write. I usually listen to film soundtracks and instrumentals during
writing time. This helps me focus. I have a playlists titled Terse Action
Scenes and ones titled for specific writing projects. If there is too much
singing or drama in a song it sometimes take me out of the flow, so I am very
particular about what I listen to.
It will be a while before my current work in progress is available for public reading. However, if you would like to sample my work, the first novella of my three novella series The Wrath of Aphrodite is available for free at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/368898
I am tagging two of my fabulous writer buddies check our their answers here:
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-writing-process-blog-hop.html
Pauline Trent: https://www.facebook.com/pauline.trent.7?fref=ts
If you’d like to know more
about the origins of this fun project please go to: http://jenniferbernardbooks.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-writing-process-blog-hop.html or check out http://www.elliemacdonald.com/blog
Thank you
C.G. Williams
