“Writing, even fiction writing, is like shining a light on all the gnarly closets of your soul,

hoping your reader will come in for a cup of tea.”

Michelle Kennedy, a heartwarmingly honest and hilarious writer I met at a workshop outside of DC, tagged me on the #mywritingprocess blog tour. Check out Michelle’s essays at The Huffington Post and Maria Shriver’s blog and LIKE and follow Michelle’s FaceBook Page.

The My Writing Process Blog Tour Instructions:

Step 1: Acknowledge the person (& site) who involved you in the blog tour.
Step 2: Answer these 4 questions about your writing process.
Step 3: Tag another writer or 2 to answer the questions the week after you. Give a one-sentence bio of each, and link to their websites.

My Writing Process Questions*

3. Why do I write? In general, I write for fun. It’s a core value of mine. I want my readers to have as much fun reading about the suspenseful, awkward, and dangerous situations my characters get into as I have creating them. It’s fun to try to figure out how (or if) they’ll manage to succeed. Don’t get me wrong: endeavoring to write well is difficult and demanding. But when you get to make stuff up and problem-solve to make it believable, difficult and demanding = exciting and fun.

 2. How does your writing differ from other’s work in the same genre?  Specifically, I write Young Adult Paranormal Suspense/Romance with strong spiritual elements.  My desire is to inspire readers to look for meaning, purpose, and guidance beyond this beautiful, painful, broken physical realm. Ultimately, I want my readers to know how unique, precious, and loved they are. How our everyday choices, from the simple to the complex, impact the physical and metaphysical world around us. For good or bad.

1. What are you working on?  I’m working on the sequel to my first novel,  HIGH: The Way of an Eagle,  available in trade paperback/e-book via Amazon. In DEEP: The Way of a Snake, Verona and Ben, with the help of their Transcender friends, confront an evil secret society terrorizing their community. How can they stop the enemy from killing them and their loved ones when it seems their every move is anticipated?

4.  How does your writing process work? I spend a lot of time daydreaming, and sometimes nightdreaming, about my characters. When I finish a scene, I’ll often go for a walk to try or just sit on my porch and work out what comes next before I return to my office. Each morning I’ll briefly edit what I’ve written on the previous day to immerse myself back into the story, but I work to finish the first draft before doing any major revising.

My first draft, while an accomplishment at over 500 pages, is brainstorm vomit. I let that fester a while, and work on something else. After a month or two, I read the entire draft and make notes. The first draft stench dissipates with revision—many!—each removing or adding layers to form the story until I can’t stand revising any more. Then I ask trusted beta readers to take a look. Make more revisions. Hire an editor to make more revisions. My husband gets impatient with the countless revising. I placate him and make more revisions. And presto! A book!

*I changed the question order because I wanted the why to come first. Please feel free to change it back if that works better for you.

I’ve tagged two writer friends. I can’t wait to learn about their writing process.

Carrie Fancett Pagels, a Christian Historical Fiction writer whose book, Return to Shirley Plantation: A Civil War Romance is available on Amazon and Kindle Carrie’s blog, Overcoming Through Time, is uplifting.

Lindsay Franklin, writes YA fantasy and short stories which have appeared in ENCOUNTER-The Magazine. She is also Senior Operating Manager for Splickety Publishing Group.