My Writing Process

Having been asked to partake in this blog hop about #mywritingprocess, I have spent most of the evening staring blankly at the inside of my own mind. (Bet you didn't know I had eyes on the inside of my skull as well as on the back of my head and the normal two at the front, did you? How else am I meant to properly watch my own nightmares. The one from the other week where I was made to slowly eat my own body, which seemed to be composed of a lot of sinew and long, stringy, pulpy bits, in order for some doctors to diagnose an illness, was especially fun and may become a short story. I just need to make it a bit more gruesome.) 

In any case, I have decided to go with my usual methodology when it comes to writing a piece, and leave it until the eleventh hour (literally - started this at 11pm) and just see what pours out of my head. This is, in essence, a performance piece of a blog entry, where I enact my process in order to come up with a blog about my process. Also as usual, Jules Anne Ironside has beaten me to the deadline. You can see what she has to say about her writing process on her blog. Whilst you're reading, I just have to use a bit of really simple Pixie magic to pop into her head and move around all of her mental notes. It is April Fool's tomorrow and it seems like a really good gag. Don't tell her; I want it to be a surprise.

I should take the chance to thank my mate Matt Willis, whose existence on the physical plane I only ascertained after agreeing to write this blog entry, and who I met in a little pub in Oxford the other week. The very pub frequented by Tolkien and Lewis, no less.  Pretty sure an Ent followed me home. In any case, Matt turns out to be just as lovely and interesting in person as he is in cyberspace, which was a relief. He even coped remarkably well when caught up in the vortex of fast-acting crazy that is Jules and I involved in a free-wheeling, free-association, surreal chat. 

Matt's first novel, Daedalus and the Deep, is available in ebook and paperback and is only the first adventure in the series. He promises he is working on the second one now. This pleases me. I have declared it to be mine. He has a rare knack for short stories, too, and I will be blogging about a collection of short stories he is co-editing with Jules before much longer. You can read more about Matt and his work on his blog.

Now, on to the actual point of the blog. My writing process. 


1) What are you working on? 

At the moment, I am working on a YA novel about Jade, a girl with the power to send people to Hell. Six months ago, she sent her boyfriend and he has just returned. Now, Jade must find a way to escape a demon of her own making, whilst working out her feelings towards Conrad, a newcomer who seems determined to be Jade's guardian. 

I am also writing a prequel to this novel, largely to firm up my own understanding of the back story. Who knows, maybe this will become the first book and the original one will be a sequel. 

Other than that, I am working on a novel about Fran, who, on the run from a traumatic event at University, is hounded by a bizarre old woman who insists that the past is written in her bones. 

The this novel which is currently vying for my attention deals with a young woman who was tricked into becoming a demonic assassin for her lover, only to find he has never loved her at all. This one will be a reworking of a short story I wrote a few months ago for a WordCloud competition and is still in the planning stages.

I have just finished work on a short story for the anthology being edited by Matt and Jules and have a number of other short stories bubbling away, though they need a while longer to simmer. 


2) How does your work differ from others of its genre?

My work tends to focus on specific physical details in the descriptions and veers towards metaphors and motifs whether that is the intention or not. I just think in metaphors. My short story for the WordCloud was described as 'compelling and disturbing', which sounds about right. I was rather smug about that, actually. Jolting the reader with a grounding or gruesome detail in amongst the figurative language is something I enjoy. 

Themes of isolation, fighting against being trapped and being desperate for meaning also recur. I am fascinated by changing states and those moments when a life choice crystalises. The boundaries between life and death are another mesmerising area to consider, as just one example of a change in state. Exploring the factors which keep us bound or make us change, then, are threaded through my work. As to whether this makes me unique? I agree with Gaiman; what makes my writing unique is the fact that I have written it, from the perspective of my particular store of experiences and life events. If something I have written resonates with someone, then I am delighted. 

Oh, and if I don't catch myself, my characters drink a lot of tea, though I mostly edit that out in the redrafts. They're thirsty buggers, these characters of mine. Well, the demon girl was intending to drink blood, but that's hardly a massive difference, is it?


3) Why do you write what you do?

Fantasy and speculative fiction in general have always drawn me in. The possibilities, the ways they can be used to explore the human condition and as metaphors for it, have offered thought-provoking and challenging tales for decades, and I love to play in this sandbox. 
Besides, everything is better with dragons.


4) How does your writing process work?

Ah. Tricky, in that is implies that I have one. 

I tend to circle an idea and pounce on bits of it at a time, scribbling down ideas on bits of paper, in notebooks, or in random word documents (I have files saved as 'random', which are collections or notes or fragments that have yet to find a home in a full piece). When an idea reaches a certain critical mass, I sit down and write from the beginning of the story. I am clearly in excellent company with the notes, as I read that Dahl once stopped his car on the side of the road and scribbled a word in the dirt of his windshield with his finger. If I am remembering correctly, that note sparked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

I have to write out the full story, working it out as I go, and then pull it all apart and start again. Plotting first has yet to work for me, though I can have a decent idea of some key moments or even an ending, as everything else can change wildly.

Ideas for the story or characters occur as I write, even if the specific bit I am writing is nothing to do with the idea I have. It is not quite automatic writing, but writing by hand or else typing do seem to unlock that part of my brain. 

I may rewrite a novel a number of times. I have replotted and rewritten Jade's story, Hellheart, six times now, and only got the end once. Each time, it becomes more vivid and solid in my mind, and stray plot points and pieces I find weak or unconvincing are cut or transformed. With any luck, this process will end and it will not turn out that I have been stuck in Tartarus all this time, writing a never-ending novel. 

When it comes to editing, I cut and cut and cut. Then I put some back in, as it can verge on being an elegant playscript in places. I follow through motifs, weave in a few extra layers in the metaphors and foreshadowing, and reach the point where I can no longer tell if this is worthy of the greats or in need of shredding. At which point, I put it aside for a bit and come at it with fresh eyes.

Then I email it to Jules or Liz Crossland and see what they think. I keep some of my mind in each of their heads. It frees up more space for thinking about dragons.


There you have it. My process, such as it is. Next week, I am handing over to Liz Crossland, my close friend and fellow tea-drinker, who will tell you about her process. Here is a little information about Liz:

Liz Crossland is a writer, linguist, and educator with a passion for Yorkshire tea. She is currently writing a novel about speed-date rambling and malevolent sheep. When she is not writing, she enjoys climbing and Ceroc dancing (but not at the same time). She has lived in many countries including Italy, Poland and Cornwall. You can find out more about Liz and her random writing at her blog.

I accidentally networked.

Having just reread my last post (and wow, that was from a long time back. Bad me), I am almost ashamed to admit how I have spent my weekend.

I networked.

I know. I know. How could I? After everything I said about networking.

Never fear, it was less power-talks and secret handshakes and more tumbling into a narrow little pub in Oxford, falling into chairs and taking part in a writing exercise which had us shouting at each other in pairs.

I am now far more self aware. The first thing of which I am now aware is that I am absolutely awful at working out beforehand what people will look like. It's not that I spent much (or any, really) time pondering this, but part of me was expecting people to look like their avatars. They didn't. Not one person in there was a cacti or a sunny beach or a boat.

At this point, I should perhaps point out that I had never met most of these people before, even though I have shared writing and random conversations and advice with many of them. We normally meet up in cyber space and this was the first time many of us had met.

I understand it was less nerve-wracking for me, even with my general confusion over how to speak to humans, as I had turned up with Jules. People seemed to work out pretty quickly that Jules and I have known each other for a good long while. We give it away somehow. Others had arrived alone and had to go through the process of working out which bunch of strangers might be the writers. More power to them. Jules and I had spotted one person at the bar and were half decided on sneaking behind him until we worked out who was with our group and we had each other as back-up. We had just decided on Skyrim style sneaking when we were spotted by someone we met back at the Writers' Festival in York last year.

In any case, it was perhaps a good thing that no-one was a boat, as the restaurant we went to was...snug. I am not used to sitting hip-to-hip with people I have just met in person, whilst I try to wrestle chicken and chips off a plate without being able to move my elbows, but it went surprisingly well. It would have gone less well had I needed to rub elbows with a ship, I feel.

Thank-you for not really being a ship, Matt.

The meal itself was wonderful, with warmth and chat and wine...which may have assisted the first two items on the list. And a special mention must go to Tray Guy. Our waiter. It is a noble profession. He dealt well with a starter being ordered for pudding (something I have longed to do for years and now I have seen someone do it. She is a hero, that woman. Next time I want more ribs and people say 'No' and 'You can't eat ribs for pudding', and I going to ignore them and eat ribs.), didn't flinch (much) when he asked who wanted the wine, all innocent of the fact he was asking a bunch of writers, and nearly got hit in the face with raised hands, and heard every pronunciation of 'poulet' possible. Everyone raise a glass to Tray Guy. May he not need too much therapy to get over that meal.

Other people also turned out not to be ships and pieces of landscape. They all also had actual people names, something I suppose I knew in theory, and the afternoon and evening was full of people telling each other real names and then promptly going back to user-names in the next half of the sentence.

Using the Eagle and Child as our meeting point meant being in a pub about as wide as my living room and seeing Tolkien and C.S.Lewis references all over the place, so that was a plus. I was tormented throughout our time there by a door labelled 'Narnia', through which no-one stepped. Someone who looked much more like a 3D human than I had expected told me that the sign was a lie, but I suspect I was just being kept out of Narnia.

Clearly, the pub became our home base, as we ended up back there after the meal. By this point, people had mostly gone home (by which I mean most people had gone home, not that everyone had partly gone home, leaving only a portion of themselves in the place) and Jules and I soon realised that the dim lighting was actually our eyelids trying to close, so we went off to find a bus. Happily, the bus we got on took us in the general direction of our hotel.

All in all, it was a great day and I would wax lyrical about everyone I spoke to, but I am filled to the brim with confusion over whether to use people names or usernames, so I will simply say that I am looking forwards to meeting up with everyone again.