Process
May
21
2007

So as I was catching up with Megan this morning on IM, we were talking about the process of writing. I’m of the “I like to write what I want to write when I want to write it” school. But the realities of writing as a career mean you often sell on proposal and sometimes just a synopsis or blurb. Which means you write what you sell based on a series of deadlines. Creating a whole new set of challenges to a writer because, as fun as writing is, it’s a job. So sometimes it’s about writing what I want to write when I want to write it, and sometimes it’s about picking up something for a deadline and falling in love with it in a new way I hadn’t thought of before. Making Chase was the latter. I had a deadline and I wouldn’t have chosen to pick up that particular project at that time. But once I started it, I fell in love with the book and the characters and I’m hella proud of it.

Everything in my life goes into the book I write at any given time. And by that I mean, the book I write today and this week won’t be the same book I write in a month or next year. What happens in my life, if I’m up or down, if there’s a particular phrase or idea that appeals to me, what I see and hear – it all influences my writing right down to my characters and word choice. I can look back at the books I’ve written and see the ebb and flow of my life, even when I work on something over a long period of picking it up and having to set it aside – and see the influences of my life on the page. It’s not even necessarily something blatant, usually not actually. But there are times when I was going through something very dark when it comes out in my writing.

This isn’t earth shattering, just a glimpse into process, LOL. Or rather, my process because everyone is different I suspect.

2 comments to “Process”

  1. anya bast
    May 21st, 2007 at 9:55 am · Link

    I HATE writing a book under deadline that I’m not “into”. Unfortunately, it’s part of the biz.



  2. Bonnie Rose Leigh
    May 21st, 2007 at 3:00 pm · Link

    I completely agree. Knowing that an idea is screaming at me to be written, but not being able to work on it because a deadline on something else takes priority. But, there isn’t anything you can do about it other than wish there were more hours in the day or that you could be cloned… LOL