The Writing Process

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