So, on Monday Laurie posted her four answers about her writing process as part of a special blog hop, and now it's my turn. Bwahahaaa! :P I was invited to take part by Laurie A. Green - three-time RWA® Golden Heart® finalist and science fiction romance enthusiast who founded the SFR Brigade community of writers, which now totals over 300 members.
What am I working on? Right now I'm absolutely drowning in edits. And mostly on a super secret project. If I told you about that I'd have to kill you. Or at least hold you prisoner until it's done. All I can tell you is it's a SciFi romance novel that I'm planning to self publish, and hopefully the first of five. I also have pre-edits on two novellas. One is a SciFi romance with a succubi-like assassin forced to impersonate her sister clone to negotiate a tricky intergalactic treaty with an alien race that despises humanity. The other is a YA paranormal story with zombies, set in Louisiana. The last is totally out of my comfort zone, but I feel trying new genres/methods etc is a good way to challenge yourself and keep it fresh. I'm also releasing a cyberpunk short story on Monday and I'm waiting on edits for a paranormal short I'm releasing in October.
How does my work differ from others of its genre? Well, I like to blend other genres into one another, or at least different elements. And I try to put odd twists in too. A touch of fantasy and paranormal into my SciFi. Underused mythical creatures. Redefining well known monsters. I also try to hit people with an ending they might not expect. There's nothing I love more than a twist that has people wondering what the heck I just did to them. Bwahahaa!
Why do I write what I do? They say write the story you want to read, so I did. Repeatedly. I don't try to write to a trend or what's hot right now. Just the story that's in my head. That's what makes me happy and why I write at all. Sometimes it takes me to somewhere completely different and leaves me doubting my sanity... Mostly scifi because that's the genre I love most, although I've now written two paranormal pieces. But give me a lightsaber over a wand any day.
Finally, how does my writing process work? It's pretty chaotic, but it works for me. I don't plot and I don't write linearly. That probably sounds like a disaster, but that's how my mind works. I have one or more scenes in my head that I write down - often that is or includes the opening scene, but not always. Those are the bones of my story. Then I go back and join them up. This can mean by the end I have to chop sections out and move them around (I once had to print off a story and literally take a pair of scissors to it, then stick it back together to be sure the timeline wasn't messed up!) but as yet I've never had someone throw a story back as too confusing.
Next up on the blog, the awesome Donna S. Frelick - Romance at the Edge of Space and Time
Wow, Pippa, your creative process sounds very close--and as chaotic--as mine. GMTA, right! And yes, TG for scissors and cut-and-paste.
ReplyDeleteI think writers do their best work when inspired, and whatever works to keep that spark burning to write a great story (with a little work) is a successful process. (Heh heh Our methods would no doubt drive a plotter insane.)
Anxious to hear about your "seckrit projik!"
After a couple of discussions, I've stopped stressing over the whole pantsing vs plotting. What works, works. Next year I'm going to try out a few new things and see how it goes.
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