My Writing Process

My writing methods are not complicated. It is not in my makeup to do extensive outlines and have it all plotted out ahead of time. Sometimes, I wish I could work that way, but I simply sit down and write the story in my head. I start at the beginning and end at the end.

Then, I go back and fix it. While I am fixing it, I fuss and grumble and tell myself I am going to buckle down and learn to plot things out ahead of time. Then, I wake up in the middle of the night and the beginning of the next story is rumbling around in my brain and I am off again on the next adventure.

I do massive editing. For the first four or five chapters, I will start each morning at the beginning and, edit as I read. Then, I will continue my story. When that begins to take too long, I start at the last chapter or two I have written. This gets me in the book's world and reminds me of what I need to do next. By the time I am at the end of the book, I would imagine the first chapter has been edited a hundred times. I work seven days a week, unless life intrudes. Sometimes for ten hours, sometimes for two.

I do eventually get around to organizing my plot. I found some great plotting help online at http://ticket2write.tripod.com/mysplot.html.

I found this when I was writing a Mystery and having a problem with plotting, but I find it works well for this Middle Grade Story also.  The Link is The Classic 12-Chapter Mystery Formula I am currently working on the plot for book two, as I am also writing it, from the start of my story.

More than anything, I love the adventure of writing. I love waking up in the middle of the night, with a great idea, and I love waking up in the morning, not knowing where the next adventure is heading. I love doing research and finding a new character, object or landmark, I just have to add to the book. I even loved the day I realized a character, that I was very fond of, would have to die and I sat there writing his life, with tears in my eyes.

In the Nick of Time - Before the End

Writing is my life saver. It keeps me sane and maybe it keeps me from packing a bag with my camera, sketchpad and pencils and hitting the road too. So, when my writing is not going as planned, it is really nice to find the perfect answer to the current problem.

I have said before, you need to be “open” to ideas to learn from them and for one to strike just the right note. This has been achieved, yet again, in an article by Cheryl Klein, in her blog Brooklyn Arden and in a speech she gave at the Terminus 2008 Potter Conference in Chicago, Illinois. It is also posted on-line at A Few Things Writers Can Learn from Harry Potter and I thank, Ms. Klein, a thousand times over, for all of the help she has, unknowingly, given me over this past two year period.

Unlike other writing sites, which tell you that you MUST do this and you CANNOT do that, Ms. Klein tells you what is so fantastic about a multi-million dollar book and how to do it in your own way.

Then, she gives you approval, where all the other’s will tell what not to do, she tells you to write what you need to write. Do not write to the market. Write to please yourself first. You are a reader after all, or you would not be here.

So, if you want to know what is so good about a book opening, or how to make your reader fall in love with your characters, or why a YA novel can have an adult theme and how to do it, spend a day or, as I have, two years reading her advice.

I just needed a refresher, to remind me where I am going and what step I need to take now to get there. She puts theme and writer’s voice and plotting into perspective for me and so, now, I shall return to my writing.

I will take my first draft, with its multiple edits done already and I will outline the other four books of my proposed series, because how can I know how to end this book (my latest struggle) if I only have a vague idea of where this journey will take me?