My Writing Process

I don't think that's there any such thing as "the" process for writing; there is mine, and then there's everyone else's own personal process.

My ideas tend to come from the strangest things; I wrote a whole novel after thinking about my lava lamp one day. The strange part is that one ended up not even being about my lava lamp.

The novel I am editing right now is actually an almost complete rewrite. I originally wrote it in third-person, but it didn't work as it should have. I liked the characters and story too much to give up on it, so I wrote it out in first-person instead. It has turned out a lot better this time, though I am still making improvments and expansions to it in this last edit. I don't think that writing is ever completely finished.

With this novel, I wrote it mostly on my laptop, which was different from usual; I tend to write it out by hand and then transcribe it to the computer. This has helped my typing skills a lot, and I think that there are sometimes that handwritten work flows better for me than typing. I tend to remember hand writing a lot easier than typed.

Once I have gotten the first draft, if it is (a) on the computer, I take a day break or so and then begin reading it over on the computer; (b) on paper, I take a break and then start typing it up. Either way, this produces my second draft. This gets printed off, and I read over it for grammar, plot holes, stories that need to be added, and anything else. I then enter those changes and create my third draft. This can go on for quite awhile. For this novel, I am on my fourth draft (which is the one I'm working on right now).

As I said, this can vary for me depending on what I'm writing. I have to do paper edits or else I miss too much in the way of typos and mistakes. Computer edits make me feel less wasteful, so that's why I do some read overs on the computer.
After I have finished this edit, I will write my query letter and start that process. I'll post more about that later.
Until then, keep writing!

ManiacScribbler =^..^=