Debut Author Interviews

What is your writing process?

• Ruth McNally Barshaw on...Writing Process
• Paula Chase on...Writing Process
• Heather Tomlinson on...Writing Process
• Melissa Marr on...Writing Process
• Greg R. Fishbone on...Writing Process
• Carrie Jones on...Writing Process
• Sarah Aronson on...Writing Process
• Joni Sensel on...Writing Process
• A.C.E. Bauer on...Writing Process
• G. Neri on...Writing Process
• Jeannine Garsee on...Writing Process

What is your writing process?

First comes a feel for the plot or the main character.

I start with page 1, with text and art, and revise as I write.

Sometimes I plot out the book with index cards, sometimes a major plot point will be a big question mark until I get to it, and sometimes I change plot points as I come to them.
I write while in character — I imagine scenes that would fit the character and pick the most likely dialogue and action.

Sometimes I cry when I put the character through a rough time, because I relate so strongly to who that person is. I hate seeing people in pain. And it’s hard knowing I caused them the pain, even if they’re just book characters. But there’s a happy ending to look forward to.

What is your writing process?

My writing process continues to evolve. But one thing is for sure, I’m a muse-writer.

When I wrote my first two mss, I was writing full-time, fresh from a lay-off. It was amazing how clear my head was without worries of commuting, corporate networking etc… My characters, the plot and everything about the world I created for the Del Rio Bay clique spoke so loudly to me. I’d sit down in front of the PC and the words would flow from my fingers as if someone else were writing and I was just the vessel. Seriously.

However, after a year, I returned to work full-time. No surprise, the creative part of my mind had to battle fiercely with the organizational/analytical side of my brain for any face time with me. Luckily, I was editing and it didn’t require quite as much creative vigor as writing from scratch.

My third mss was the product of sheer exhaustion - mss fatigue, that is. I was so GLAD to have my first mss finished and off to my agent that I jumped right into my third novel. It had nothing to do with my first two. So it felt great to be on to new characters and a completely new world. Again, I sat in front of the PC and the words flowed.

However, now that I have a full-time job AND churning the wheels to get my first two novels ready for publication my creative side is multi-tasking as much as my analytical side. I’ve stopped and stuttered on my WIP. The characters aren’t speaking as clearly to me. The plot is all over the place and I feel like a stranger in the world I’ve started.

I don’t do very well if my muse is distracted. My only hope is to get a serious flash of inspiration, attempt some sort of sabbatical at work, wait until I’m writing full-time before I get another full mss written or hope that the books I have now will become a series (as planned) so that I’ll be able to work within a world I’m already familiar.

What is your writing process?

I love classic fantasy, and am terribly plot-challenged, so several times I’ve started with a fairy-tale and then poked at it, asking questions about things in the narrative that bugged me, trying to find a setting and characters that would help me make sense of the sequence of events.

With Swan Maid, I wondered why the title of so many versions is “The Maid as Helper in the Hero’s Flight.” It was her flight, too! Why was the story always told from the hero’s point of view, never the heroine’s? What attracted one to the other? Why did the heroine want to get away from her family? Where did she get her magical powers? Once they had escaped, why should she saddle her new fiance with another impossible task, use a flimsy excuse to dump him, and then go to a lot of trouble to get him back? This seemed like a story with a lot of hidden conflict, ready to be fleshed out.

Having read up on medieval Provence for a previous project, I already had some ideas about how and where these characters lived. Once I had an outline that roughly corresponded to the tale’s traditional elements, I started writing. Longhand, in coffee shops mostly, since when the computer’s booted up I’m quite capable of spending hours “doing research” online if I don’t have something specific that needs to be typed. A writing buddy regularly joined me, which was fun and fruitful. It’s amazing how a little solidarity can boost your word count! My critique group also commented on each chapter, which helped keep me focused. I revised the finished draft a couple more times, had another writer read the whole thing, incorporated her suggestions, and then sent it out. The whole process took about a year, and then I started the next book!

What is your writing process?

Like Paula, I’m a muse writer. I do a lot of walking with my camera, meditating, and anything else I can to feed Ms. Muse. Until I find my characters, it’s all about just finding things that spark. Once I have my POV characters in line, it’s a mad rush. Since I write third person with multiple POV, my plot is a result of putting the characters in a box and shaking them up.

For me, BIC (butt-in-chair) doesn’t work. If Ms. Muse isn’t willing to dance, I either revise what I have, go play, or try to find ways to entice her closer. When she dances, I don’t leave the chair for 14 hour time blocks. When she doesn’t … *shrug* … some people can’t be forced to function on any schedule but their own. My muse is one of them, so I roll with it. It works.

Once I get to the final third to fourth of the text, I start examining my narrative structure by organizing events with colour-coded post-its on my grey-board. This helps me assure that each narrative flow is represented efficiently.

What is your writing process?

I like to write in coffee shops. It’s a bohemian cliche, writing the Great American Episolary Adventure Novel in a coffee shop, but a hot mug of java really does spark the creative process—even if it’s decaf! Once I have my coffee in place, and maybe a sesame bagel with cream cheese, I insert my earbuds, crank up the “book soundtrack” on my laptop, and get to work.

Before writing anything new, I always go over the old stuff to get my mind back into the story. Some people write an entire draft before they start revising, but I revise as I go. I revise from the first chapter every time I sit down at the computer, until I reach the end of the story, and then I revise some more. Then, after I send the book off to my agent, I find a whole bunch of tweaks and changes I wish I’d made. Basically, the revising process starts when the first paragraph is typed and never, ever ends.

What is your writing process?

Tips on the Carrie Jones Writing Process:

1. Sit in a chair at house. Not a coffee house. Not a field of lilies. Carrie Jones is not that cool.
2. Move cat, Lyra, off laptop.
3. Apologize to cat and pet cat head, fearful of offending the kitty writer muses.
4. Open laptop and sigh. Note: All writers sigh or shrug. A lot. Try to remember to not let characters sigh and shrug a lot.
5. Write. Type and type and then check email. Type and type and then make tea.
6. Try not to obsess about wordcount. How can only be 1,002 words? You’ve been working for weeks.
7. Try not to obsess about plot and objective correlatives in the first draft. Leave that for revision.
8. Realize that revising is WAY more fun than the first draft.
9. Do a happy dance in the kitchen once first draft is done. Ignore cat’s scornful looks.
10. Realize that sometimes you can write with an outline (but prefer not to) Realize sometimes you can write like Alison McGhee (just in scenes in no particular order, later piecing them together and fillling them in). Realize that it doesn’t matter. All that matters is writing.
11. Stop dancing and realizing and sit down again. Move cat off laptop. Revise some more. Tell yourself this writing piece is “An Experiment” that way it doesn’t matter if it bubbles over, burns the carpet, or explodes in the basement.
12. Laugh like a mad scientist, rub hands together. Type some more.

What is your writing process?

First, I need a title. Nothing happens until I have one.

Then I spend some time “loitering.” My process relies heavily on serendipity. I read the newspaper, take long walks, listen carefully to what people I know are talking about. I look around for interesting signs, garbage in the gutter. I eavesdrop.

When I think I have an opening line, I start to write. I write and rewrite the first ten pages until I am satisfied. I play around with POV. I interview the viewpoint character. I think about setting. Spend a great deal of time thinking about how my character sees things. I work on the obstacle….the whole time, I wonder: what does the character want??

Once I’ve settled on title, character, beginning, and obstacle, I write like mad. As fast as possible.

When I’m done with the draft, the real work starts….

What is your writing process?

Some books come easier than others, but I’m with those who get a divine download. The first line pops into my head and it just flows from there, and as long as I write as fast as I can — and I mean sometimes 12 or more hours a day, neglecting the chores, the mail, the day job, the rest of my life — it usually just keeps flowing. I’ve taken a small notebook and pen out on a walk so I can keep jotting while trying to prevent mold from growing on myself, and I have another notebook in my car. (I try to only use it at stoplights, though!)

I almost NEVER know specifically what’s going to happen next, but when I’m unsure, I literally write the first line of dialogue or description that comes into my head and while I certainly revise, it more or less works. (Revise, yeah. I usually take about a month to write the first draft and months or years to whip it into shape to market. At least I’m getting faster at that part.) Usually, but not always, the title comes very early, too; and I often get the last line, and recognize it as such, before I’m quite to the end. It’s a fantastic feeling, this channeling of a story. And it’s a good thing nobody lives with me other than my dogs, because I often find one CD or even one song that crystallizes the story for me and listen to it obsessively until the first draft is done. I’m sure it’d drive another human nuts. But it sure is fun.

What is your writing process?

Each novel I’ve written has been a different process. The first novel was like Paula’s: I sat at the computer and words flew onto the screen. The story unfolded for me as I wrote it. It was a fun middle grade fantasy adventure, with some interesting characters and a good plot. It needs some real work, however, and I plan to get back to it.

The next novel started the same way as the first—words flowing onto page. Then I realized my characters were cardboard cutouts and I spent some time interviewing them and tried to insert all this great information into the plot—the results were disasterous, and that novel will never see the light of day.

My third novel started with an interview with each of my characters. I knew I had a thirteen year-old girl with family secrets. I wrote about half of it, realized that first person present tense wasn’t working, but needed to keep it first person. A journal ensued. The family secrets related to the Holocaust, and I ended up doing a huge amount of research—resulting in stretches when I didn’t sleep nights. The writing was the best so far, although the plot wasn’t as strong as I had hoped. I had some serious nibbles at it, and I may look at it again, in a few years, and see if it can be salvaged.

For my fourth novel, I *knew* how to write novels, right? Wrong. I interviewed my characters. One was an 11 1/2 year old boy. Another was a mysterious bookstore owner. They had zilch in common. But then, as I kept pestering the boy, he told me he had stolen a book. Now I knew where my story had to begin. As for the bookstore owner, she lapsed into a fabulous fairy tale. And I knew I had to tell that story, too. So I followed Augie along, on the one hand, and kept writing fairy tales, on the other. I had no idea where I was going, but my writers’ group kept telling me that this would all hook up, don’t worry. And I did a whole lot of historical research. The result is a book that is neither fish nor fowl: a contemporary story of a boy in Camden, NJ insterlaced with fairy tales that span centuries. I call it magical realism—that’s ‘cause I’m not sure what genre it fits in. It’ll be published by Random House Children’s Books in autumn, 2007.

I started my fifth novel the same way I started my fourth: by interviewing some characters. I really liked a 13 year old girl with a huge family, but as I wrote chapter after chapter, I realized that I was getting nowhere. Then, that summer, I went to see a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, got a picture book version of the play, and read the original. Integral to the plot is the fight between the king and queen of fairies over a changeling that the queen was fond of. At the end of the play, she agrees to hand over the changeling to the king in exchange for peace between them. Yet the changeling never appears on stage. What happened to this boy? I decided to find out. The result was a book about 13 year old boy who is the foster child of two rather frightening characters. He ends up being friends with the 13 year old girl, and another boy who is severely socially inept. There are no fairies in the story. No magic, really. Except for a crow that befriends the foster boy—in a magical kind of way. I’m still shopping that one around.

As for the sixth novel? You’ll have to wait till I’m done before I can tell you how I wrote it.

What is your writing process?

The best process I have only works for first drafts. Normally, I might sit and write my self out, meaning write until I run out of ideas. But in an experiment on my latest novel, inspired by the “write a novel in 30 days” challenges, I decided to finish my draft before I left for vacation. I basically had 39 days and figured out that I needed x number of pages to finish. And I simply did the math. It came out to 1.5 pages a day (single spaced). When I saw that, it suddenly seemed do-able. 1.5 pages, no problem! But the beauty of it was, once I got started, the writing came easier and easier. Why? Because after I finished 1.5 pages, I forced myself to stop. Even if I had another 3 pages in me. The result was, my mind kept working after I stopped, writing those next pages in my head. When I sat down the following day, the next 1.5 pages were already worked out in my brain. And the more I wrote, the further I got in my head, the faster that 1.5 pages came out. Soon, I was finishing my assignment in 30 minutes or less. I was the most fun I’d ever had writing—easy, playful, no stress.

While this process doesn’t work for rewrites, I will follow this method from now on with all my first drafts.

What is your writing process?

Because I have a full-time job outside of the home, I can’t afford to depend on my “muse” (who actually loves to play hide-and-seek with me, anyway). I set aside a couple of days a week, pack up my laptop, and head out to a coffee shop where I have NO internet access, NO phone calls or other distractions, and unlimited espresso. I’m a stick-your-butt-in-the-chair-and-don’t-move-till-you’re-finished kind of writer. The girls at the coffee shop all know me by name, and when they see me approach the counter, they simply ask, “The usual?”

I do find that my most successful writing comes from spur-of-the-moment ideas. If I sit down and actually plot something out, I end up going nowhere, or stalling somewhere in the middle. When I wrote Before/After the idea was unexpectedly triggered by something I saw on TV. The next day, I simply sat down and started to write. My current WIP began the same way—I experienced a “trigger” and the next thing I knew, I had several thousand words written and I’m still going strong. Neither were stories I gave a lot of advance thought to; they pretty much hit me straight out of the blue.