A: For Zaria Fierce and the Secret of Gloomwood Forest I was about halfway through the first draft when it became clear to me I needed to utilize a timeline. I stopped writing immediately and opened a new document and then I read from the beginning. I sorted out the days and events I had already done and then kept the document handy for future events. That time I hadn’t made a mistake, but I could have, and it became a real time-saver later.
Author
Q: Do you have any tricks for staying focused?
A: Yes, give yourself a deadline or end goal. You’re going to want to meet it and possibly exceed it. There’s lots of wonderful stories about writers who have finished a book in mere days, or completed massive amounts of prose for the annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.) What works for you?
Q: What makes a good idea for a book?
A: How you write it. Do you think it through? Look for the ways to enhance a story or world? Do you research? Do you plot? Do you allow for spontaneity? Writing is personal and it is fluid. What works for you is not what works for someone else be it either in the telling or the reading of it. Faults aren’t always bad. You can embrace them and run amok and produce something very fine indeed. Not everyone will get it, but some will love you for it. A perfectly engineered book is also delightful. When every thread is wrapped up to perfection and an author makes it appear effortless (which it can be…sometimes…) it is beautiful and deeply satisfying. Just be passionate about your topic or story and the rest will follow.
Q: Before you begin to write, what do you do?
A: I queue my book playlist, and find a song to start the day or hit shuffle. Sometimes I reread the last scene, but if I do reread, I only allow myself to make nominal changes to it before continuing. Editing, as I’ve heard, is the biggest time suck to your writing process if you let it rule you before its time comes. I’m careful to not do too much of it until the book’s first draft is done.
Q: How many hours a day do you spend actually writing?
A: I write until I reach a stopping point, which is usually three to four hours into the process. If I deviate from writing to do research, social media, e-mail, or blog then I stay at the computer longer and try to get in those solid writing hours.
Q: Where do you do most of your writing?
A: I sit on the loveseat in the office and write on my laptop, or I sit on the leather couch in the family room and look out the window, or I sit on the balcony and write with the breeze rifling through my hair, or I sit at the bar height dining room table and prop my feet on the swivel chair rungs. That’s the great thing about a laptop you can write nearly everywhere.
