I was invited by M.L. Ortega, author of Turn Key Condition,  to join a little blog hopping discussion on “The Writing Process”, then to pass the baton on to a couple of other authors who will join in as well.  Let’s jump right in…

1) What am I working on?

I am currently about 20K words into a fantasy novel tentatively titled DarkHarte. It started, ironically, as a paragraph or so on a game a friend and I were playing on Storium – the online storytelling game, and just sort of took off from there.

I’m supposed to be working on it as a part of the July Camp NaNo session, but between the kids being on summer vacation, and my work schedule being all out of whack, I don’t think I’m going to get it finished in 30 days this go around. Which is fine, really. There is a lot I want to do with this, and some of it is going to take a bit of time to set up. Exciting though, to be sure!

There is a rough (and I do mean ugly as sin) draft of DarkHarte on Book Country if anyone is interested in giving some feedback. It’s always appreciated!!

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Guess I’m supposed to say something like, “IT’S AWESOME!!!” and “INCREDIBLE!!!”, but in truth, it probably doesn’t really. I don’t know. XD

My first novel, In Plain Sight, which is still being submitted to publishers, is historical fiction. It will likely be published as historical romance, and while the romance is a large component of the book – girl meets boy, they fall in love, etc… there is also a strong focus on the historical aspects of the story, and the family relationships as well – not only blood family, but those whom we may choose along the way as well. I think the extra details are important, in creating a world that someone can lose themselves in, at least for a time.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I used to write a lot as a child and into my teens, and though I took a long hiatus into my adult years, I continued to have plots and characters, and all the bits and pieces swirling around in my brain. I have all sorts of scraps of paper, and files with sentences and ideas. And after several years of half-assing it, I finally put some effort into doing something with those fragments.

Genres – I don’t (at least as of yet) have a particular one that I stick to. As I mentioned my first was historical romantic fiction, and my current one is fantasy. My last project, which will likely remain unfinished at least for the foreseeable future, would probably fit more as suspense. So, it’s clear to see that I’m a bit all over the place.

4) How does my writing process work?

Admittedly it’s still a struggle for me. Time management is not my forte, and between raising a severely autistic child, and work – quiet time is not something that I get frequently, and when I do I’ve usually already been sitting at my computer so long that I just want to fall into bed. So finding time to write is sometimes hard. But at the same time I have all these ideas, so while it might take me a bit longer to get to it (though not nearly as long as George R. R. Martin thankfully), I fully intend to do a lot more writing in the future.

In terms of actual process – it’s sort of fly by the seat of my pants. I keep notebooks by my bed, and am forever thankful that my cell phone has a voice recorder. I do some planning, outlines, character descriptions, etc… for which I tend to use Google Docs almost exclusively. I’ve tried fancy writing programs, and they just annoy me to no end. Too much extra clicking and hassle, I’d rather just scroll down the page. Guess it’s a case of knowing my own organized chaos, is easier than figuring out a new system. XD

Anyways, that’s about it for me. Next week on our lovely tour…

I would invite you to check out Dave Evans, author of The Mistress of Dimmiga Berg. I’ve spoken a bit about him previously, and really can’t say enough good things about him.