My Process

So, several people have asked about my writing process. Right now, my process looks a lot like this:

I just had my fourth child. So life is just a little bit crazy. That being said, I think having my writing and deadlines and goals has helped me tremendously. In my world, meaningful productivity is the secret to day to day happiness. I believe in being present. I believe in scrapping plans to hold a baby or child who needs to be held, but to do lists and daily goals help keep me sane. I’ve been doing lists for so long I’ve come to have a very amicable relationship with them. I rarely see an unchecked off item as a source of guilt. It simply gets moved to the next day’s list. I like making huge lists. It’s a lofty goal, but one I don’t feel too bad about not completing. I also like adding things to the list that are “givens.” Like, I put breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the list. I do. Every day. Separately. So I know there are at least a few items that I will for sure check off. Plus, occasionally I need some kind of validation for making PB&Js and slicing apples and carrots for the 70 millionth time.

So, I like to loosely organize my time. I also like flexibility. I sometimes prioritize my lists and even give a ballpark time unit for some of the tasks, but if I schedule it down to the precise minutes and hours I will go crazy.

Once I’ve made time to write, I like to write whatever I’m feeling excited about. The creation of Waking Beauty was a very long process. I started writing and loosely piecing the story together in my parents’ basement when I was sixteen. That computer crashed and I lost all of it. I took a creative writing class at college my sophomore year and I brought back the first chapter as a writing sample. My professor thought it was intriguing and humorous. I put it away until another class the next year. Writing for adolescents. During the section on YA novel writing, I dug it up once again and really started to flesh out the story line. I wrote several scenes and workshopped them in class until I really liked them. Then I had to work on graduating and got busy again. Once I got married, my sweet husband continuously nagged — I mean, encouraged me to work on my story. He really wanted me to finish it. I don’t think I ever would have if not for his belief in me and his endearingly persistent personality. Over the next five or so years, the story slowly became more and more complete. The hardest part about writing, for me, is what I like to call “connecting the dots.” This is when I’ve finished all the scenes that interest me and I have to connect them all together with scenes that I desperately try not to make too boring and contrived. The first draft was pretty terrible. My husband loved it. Husbands are so good at things like that. I had a few friends read it and thought someday I’d try to publish it.

By this time I had started having kids and writing time was harder to come by. I’d edit here and there. Finally, I got around to really making the whole publishing thing happen. I got connected with a local publishing company and started working with a fantastic editor who really helped me improve the fluidity and characterization and just, well, everything in the novel. Editing is hard work, but a good editor helps tremendously. A fresh pair of unbiased and well trained eyes is invaluable. It gave me a new goal, something to shoot for, and most importantly, helped me fix parts of my story that I just didn’t like.

So that is sort of the birth story of Waking Beauty. Right now I am simultaneously working on two novels. When I have time between kids and life and trying to promote a book (something I have no idea how to make myself be excited about). For these new stories I am in the map out the plot, make copiously detailed character sketches, wake up in the night and write a sentence or thought I like in the notes app on my phone to add to draft the next morning phase. It’s very exciting. One is another YA novel, although not a retelling. It has more of a historical fiction vibe… The other would probably be characterized as literary fiction. I’m going for quirky, whimsical, and subtly poignant on that one. That’s all I can tell you right now. But be excited! Given my track record, they should both come out some time in the next thirty-two years.

Jokes aside, I’ve learned so much from writing Waking Beauty. And I’m so grateful. For me, I think it really comes down to making time for writing, staying persistent though the hard parts, accepting that nothing comes out perfectly the first time (aka first drafts are really, really awful and that’s okay), and surrounding yourself with supportive people who are excited about what you are doing. That is so key. And I’ve got some gooood people.