I've been invited to join the Writing Process Blog Hop tour by Kyra Halland, I would like to thank her for this opportunity to answer questions about my writing.
Q1) What am I working on?
I have numerous works at various stages of
production at the moment. I have just published the second in my Vampire Hunter
Trilogy, The Shadowing Coven, and I am writing the first draft of the next book
in my Ramton Gallow Mystery series, The Amazing Pickwick Circus. There are a
couple of projects still at the plotting stage, and once The Amazing Pickwick
Circus is complete I will choose one of them to start writing the first draft.
And so the cycle continues.
Q2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I’m not sure how to answer that question; I think I’ll
leave it to my readers. I just write the books that I would like to read, and
hope that others feel the same.
Q3) Why do I write what I do?
I’ve been asked this question numerous times, and I
still don’t have a decisive answer. I guess I write what I do because it’s the
kind of stories that are inside me, bursting to get out.
Q4) How does my writing process work?
My writing process usually starts with the spark of
an idea, which can come from anywhere, that I jot down and let germinate. When I
am ready to develop the idea into a book, I write out the plot and do any
necessary research. As this can take weeks, sometimes months or more, I start
writing the first draft of a book that has already been plotted and researched.
The story is divided into chapters, and given a target word count for each
chapter, which is an easier and less daunting task to concentrate on than the
book as a whole. It also means that when I go over the target word count on
some chapters I can bank them for when a chapter falls a little short.
Once the first draft is done I leave it to rest for about six weeks before I
start on the second draft, this means that when I return to it I do so with a
fresher eye and notice those things in the story that need to be changed. Once
I feel it is ready to be published I format it to publication specs and go
through it again for any mistakes. I then print it out in book form to see how
it looks, go through it again just to make sure everything is fine, and then...
it gets cast out to the whole world. I almost never return to it once it has
been published. The irony of writing books that I as a reader would love to
read is that because I have written them I can’t re-read them without a
critical eye, and so do not enjoy my work.
That's my writing process in a nutshell, I hope you enjoyed finding out a bit more about how I take those crazy thoughts out of my head and put them down on paper.
Here are a couple of others who have been involved with the Writing Process Blog Hop Tour:
Be sure to check them out.
