Grab a cuppa and a comfy seat, and let’s chat a while.
It’s Monday again - time for Coffee and Conversation.
When I was six, my familywas driving on a highway late at night. Streaks of headlights and taillights painted the dark. For the first time, I realized that each car held people living lives as important to them as mine was to me.
I wanted to know what those lives were, and to share my own…
This week, I’ve got something different, because my WANA friend Gretchen Wing tapped me for the Writing Process Blog Tour. I highly recommend Gretchen’s blog, Wing’s World – it’s full of travel and life observations offered in a slightly quirky, upbeat way.
Thanks, Gretchen! This was fun, and I learned some things about me!
1. What am I currently engaged with?
- I’ve been writing Star Trek fan fiction since my early teens. It’s evolved with me; now there’s a strong original fantasy element. I ‘m writing a fanfition/fantasy double series, Trueborn. Each stands alone, but there’s a richer story when read together.
- I also have a new fan fiction project based on Star Trek: Enterprise in the early plotting stages.
- In this month’s Blogging From A-Z Challenge, I’m exploring Kifo Island Chronicles, a resort dedicated to hospice care. I’m not sure what shape this project will eventually take – maybe a series of novellas.
- I also blog regularly, and have poetry and short stories in various stages of development.
No, this is not how I write …but she’s definitely inspirational!
2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?
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For me, writing is delicious play. I think that makes my writing different – the more I embrace the notion of writing as play, the more individual my writing becomes.
- I tend to see things differently than many people do, and that perspective appears in my writing. Children in my stories are independent and capable; many, like my own children, do not go to school. They don’t have much need or patience for adults who interfere in their lives. The life I live with my family isn’t a parents-as-bosses-of-children model, and neither are many of the families I write about. Even when the parents think they are in control, the children have their own definite goals, and ideas on how to go about achieving them.
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Oh, and there are Vulcans(even though sometimes well-hidden). I do love my Vulcans!
3. Why do I write what I do?
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I write what I write for simple reasons -it’s what I love, what compels me, drives me nuts, makes me laugh, cry, ponder, or seethe.
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It’s what fires my imagination…
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I write to touch you, know you, share myself with you, and invite you to share, too!
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To make statements about things that fall under a code of silence that break and shatter lives.
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I find strength and healing in honesty.
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I write the people who populate my mind, the places I imagine between the scenes in shows and movies, the threads my fancy weaves between disparate things, the things I’ve noticed and discovered in myself and others.
- I write the journey of my life, and how it connects to the wider world. It’s my breadth and my depths, and how I live…
- I write what I write because it’s who I am – as a writer, and a human.
Creative process…writing and editing.
4. How does my writing process work?
- I like to noodle around for a while before writing. Many ideas come while I’m doing unrelated things, especially taking a hot shower, driving, hometending, being with my family, playing games…you know, living.
- I often jot notes and random snips of what I’m thinking of before I begin planning.
- I use Rock Your Plot, to develop ideas. It’s open-ended, so the story can go where it will, and structured enough that I don’t wander around aimlessly, waiting for something -anything! – interesting to happen
- I like 750 Words for my initial writing – it’s an expanse of plain white screen, with no containment field. It’s a playground for my raw ideas.
- I move the rough draft to my word processing program, and mark it up with color-coded highlighters – bright, playful and useful. After a rest, I start revising, and continue until I’m pleased with the result.
- Larger projects – anything that might become book-length – move to Scrivener, where I can develop them in subsequent drafts.
- I enjoy participating in writing challenges. I like the stretching, and use these to advance projects and ideas I’m toying with. This month, I’m advancing WIPs that have been waiting for CampNaNoWriMo, and giving shape and substance to Kifo Island, a locale that’s been tickling my imagination for a year.
- Overarching all other challenges is ROW80. I arrange my writing projects around the four 80 day rounds. Twice-weekly updates keep my focused on my goals, so that I have something to report. It is also a wonderful community of writers, at all levels of ability.
LIfeWriting. =D
For next week, I’ve tapped my just-about lifelong best friend, and partner-in-crime for those first fanfics, Eden Mabee. Here’s a bit about her, but, trust me, she’s way more than this!
Eden Mabee is slowly making a life out of finding the creative and the enjoyable in everything. She collects feral cats, odd do-dads, historical trivia and lots of books–all of which she uses to build fictional worlds. Her blog Many Worlds From Many Minds follows her creative journey in prose and photography. You can find her pictures on Imgur and Flickr under her Twitter name @Kymele. She lives somewhere in New York State where her husband and son to inspire her almost daily.
How about you? Whether it’s writing or any other goal, how do you approach it? What makes it special to you? Why do you do what you do? Let me pour you a cuppa, and let’s chat!
Word, words, words!
