The Process

It always interests me how different writers are when it comes to the writing process. Little things are so important to some of us. Some of us have set routines while others can hammer out stories in any environment. Unfortunately, I’m not part of the latter group.

I was next door at my neighbor’s doing laundry a couple of hours ago, and during conversation it came up how I will never learn how to spell the word “restaurant.” She mentioned using Siri for all her spelling needs, and I explained how I used Google when I was writing as a spellchecker. On a Mac, when you minimize the window with the search page up and the cursor over the icon, the word appears above it. You can type in Word with the correct spelling there to see.

So stupid, but it’s how I do it.

I write in the mornings usually, fueled by coffee and cigarettes. Dark roast with hazelnut creamer and Dean’s filter cigars. I used to pull up music on iTunes, but these days it’s more often on Spotify. Right now I’m listening to the hiphop collective Brockhampton. This morning, while I was working on my latest novel, it was the folk-metal band Danheim.

Let’s talk about this morning. I opened a folder that held all my information for that new novel. I opened my “chapters” folder that told me I needed to work on chapter 31 next, so I opened my “summary.doc” next. Scrolling down, I found the paragraph that detailed what I decided was going to happen in that chapter. I’m a big time plotter, and have the book planned out, each chapter until the end. Safari opened to Google and Spotify minimized, the “summary.doc” shifted to the side of the screen, I opened a new dot.doc and began working on chapter 31. At some point, if I decide I need to consult a thesaurus, I’ll use an app on my phone.

I decided a while back what works best for me in terms of plotting, storytelling, and productivity. Lots of short chapters, each around 1000 words, with a total of fifty to sixty chapters. I prefer ensembles casts as opposed to solo protagonists, and this book I’m working on now will be the first time I’ve done an entire novel in first person POV. I’ve enjoyed it so far, mostly because I’ve tried something weird with it, but I don’t know if I’ll do it again soon.

I’ll try to mash out at least 1000 words a day, at least one chapter. Fifty percent of the time, I’ll get a second chapter done, too. Depends on the day. I make sure to ignore social media during this time, and just write. Hard to ignore one of the cats throwing me dirty looks, but I do my best.

The 7Q Interview series comes out every Monday/Tuesday, featuring a new author every week. My collection YOUR ARMS AROUND ENTROPY is still available for only $0.99 right here. I’d love to see some other authors write up a short post about their process, just so we could share in the creativity.

Oh... and a shot of my desk.