"Writing About Writing" Blog Tour

Thank you, Lisa Mikitarian, for including me in the "Writing About Writing" Blog Tour. I had to answer four "simple" questions. For some reason I wanted to answer four completely different questions, but I'll have a go at the ones I was given.

In the next week or two I'll introduce two or three other writers who will tackle these questions from their own perspectives. If you're new here, please subscribe. I promise not to sell, lease, rent, give away, or otherwise propagate your information, and the NSA already has it. I will never ask for your credit card information. (I prefer PayPal for online transactions. 8^)

(And... I'm off! But you probably knew that.)

1. What are you currently working on?
   Right now a fair amount of what I'm doing is related to the process of self-publishing, or at least trying to get my head around doing it well. But when I am writing, I'm working on the second in a series of three or four YA novels. (Think historical fiction but include the dragons that most historians ignore.) I've also been working on some short stories to put on a web site to promote the novels but it's starting to look like the short stories may be parts of another novel set in the present day of the same timeline as the others.
2. How does your work differ from others in the same genre?
   My characters tend to be based on people I have known so they tend to be unique and real. I also remember quite well what it was like to be the ages I write about. I totally lose myself in the characters and story; it's the writing equivalent of method acting. The result is realism even in surreal settings. Since I have lived with my characters and these mythical beings as friends, companions, and enemies my entire life, I think I can show them to you better than many writers who think they are making things up.

   Also, I write from the same frame of reference in which I live: "there is no box". Everything is fair game. I might overlay something everyone goes through onto a roller coaster no one else thought of.

3. Why do you write what you write?
   I write what I love, whether that's in the technical landscape, new worlds, or about my faith. I also try to write what I know. I commit acts of research but they have to tie in somehow with things, places, times, actions, or people that I know or have known in some sense.

   As for the series mentioned above... I love teenagers. I love history. I love Scotland. I love dragons. I love plot twists. I love life. I love the mystical. I love myth. I love love. I love learning and growing.

   I love words. I love reading and writing. (I also love 'rithmetic, but that doesn't really factor into this discussion.)

4. Describe your writing process.
   My friend Sally Hanan- the Inksnatcher- calls me a "pantser". While this sounds like someone you might hold onto your belt around, she means someone who "writes by the seat of their pants". It's not 100% true, but it's very close. I have always thought of it as stream of consciousness writing. Ideas, of course, come from anywhere and everywhere, inspired by anything, everything, and nothing. Once I start writing, it just flows. I often have no idea where I am going. Even when I do I probably have no idea how I will get there. That's half the fun for me; it's like reading a new story or book; you don't know what's coming. Then I finish, and... Hey! This is mine! I did this! And I like it! Here, you should read this!

   Unless it's something very short I usually put it away for anywhere from a few hours to a month (occasionally years). I'll then revisit it; is it worth editing or was it just a writing exercise? If it's good I'll clean it up and ask someone else (usually my wife Sharon) to read it. If they like it, I keep going. Sharon is also a very good editor, providing everything from plot suggestions to dialogue revisions to grammar and spelling correction (I inevitably miss some things). I have rewritten everything from clauses to multiple chapters.

   For years I thought I was incapable of writing novels; my process on the first novel expanded from that of my many short stories and various technical and other articles. For a month I wrote at least a chapter every night, and multiple chapters each weekend. When something was demanding to get out of my mind onto paper I just dove in; otherwise I would do a first edit on the previous days' work first. Sharon saw this chapter by chapter and several times as a finished work. After I finished the first draft I sat down and read straight through just as a reader to see how I liked it. I was pretty amazed with the result, even raw.

   I keep several files on each book and the series as a whole to keep track of people, places, and other things with names, the timeline, ideas for things coming later, quotes, problems, related writings, things I cut out but want to keep, background data, and so forth. I save a revision every so often.

   In addition to Sharon's editing passes, I made numerous trips through the entire book for purposes such as:

   • plot flow;
   • character development and consistency;
   • chapter self-containment
   • historical and geographical correctness as needed, temporal continuity;
   • dialogue;
   • spelling, grammar, punctuation;
   • overall feel, cliche removal, etc.
   It's not an exact process (pantser, remember?) but you get the idea.

   I've also found that thinking about troublesome scenes, characters, or other developments before I fall asleep brings some great insights- sometimes in completely different parts of the book (or series).

   Some writing begs to be done with pen and paper, some on my desktop computer. The novel refused to even start until I tried writing in LibreOffice on my MacBook Air. Why? Great question. Why does one piece of art want to be done in pastels, another with oil? Why does one song demand a Strat and another a Flying V? I quit arguing with my tools long ago.

I had a tight deadline for this blog; I may revisit it and edit it later, but I don't forsee any major plot twists such as killing off the Inksnatcher. Not right away at any rate.

Thanks again to Lisa for including me. If you haven't visited her blog you should; she's brilliant, witty, and sweeter than deep south iced tea.

Blessings and hugs to all.

THE END