I was recently asked by my friend David Bruns, creator of The Dream Guild Chronicles, if I was interested in writing a MondayBlog about my writing process. This came with the basic premise of answering some basic questions and finding another writer to discuss their own writing process. In the week following, I found myself looking forward to the blog, the only drawback is that I have been looking for someone for next Monday, but so far have had little luck. I’ll keep you posted on the next round of MondayBlogs.
Update! I have found the next MondayBlogger, and that is Kasper Beaumont. Thank you Kasper! Be sure to check out her blog!
What am I working on at the moment?
I am currently writing the last few chapters of Pallitine Lost and will be reviewing it for clarity, continuity, and cohesion (the three Cs).
After this, I will be working on a Novella set in the same world as Pallitine, Druid’s Debt, and starting in on my post-apocalyptic book, Unity.
How does my work differ from others in the same genre?
That’s a hard one to pin down. I’ve written cross-genre shorts before, but for my current series, Pallitine’s Path, I would have to say that the difference is in the protagonist, and the choices she has to face in the series. World-changing choices. The protagonist starts as a young girl who is raised in a less-than-ideal situation, and is presented with the opportunity to grow and learn to become a knight. The stories revolve around her, as she becomes a strong woman who is faced with tough struggles that she must overcome and how she deals with unexpected hardships while trying to achieve her goals. While she has her faults, she tries to do good both for herself, and for those who she feels duty-bound to protect. Needless to say, she kicks some serious ass in the process.
Why do I write what I do?
I write because I love to create. I’ve dabbled in creating music, created an online game (now defunct), and I write – all to express this creativity. One thing that all of these have had in common is this: I create things that I would love to listen to, explore, and read. I want to create things that will capture the imagination and draw the observer into another world. And if I happen to be that observer while in this process of creation – then so be it. There’s a certain sense of accomplishment in creating, even if it’s not shared with many people.
How does my writing process work?
My writing process tends to be partly driven by inspiration, and partly goal-oriented. I’ve always had a rather dichotomous approach toward creativity, a sort of structured chaos. I will let my instincts guide me down a path until x,y, or z happens. I then take a step back and either let it sit, meaning to get back to it later, or I’ll review it then. Once I’ve reviewed it – either immediately, or at some later point – I let the thoughts behind the work marinate in my brain and think of directions it can go, and try to find the most compelling or interesting approach. From there I write down a basic goal of what I want for the story. This will include direction, struggles I want to focus on, and outline a series of events. Within this structure I again let my instincts guide me – sometimes going against the direction I’ve planned out, and sometimes just nudging the goal slightly off course, but I let it move forward. I then read, re-evaluate, and re-plot if necessary.
In this process, I’ve realized that I can’t be shy about recognizing any past mistakes and excising them if it doesn’t move the story forward. For example, I’ve written approximately 750 pages worth of material for Pallitine Rising. About 100 or so pages were complete rubbish and needed to be tossed, another 340 or so I liked, but either just didn’t fit with the story I was trying to tell, or conflicted with the continuity of what I was trying to create. This left me with approximately 310 pages once the story was completed, if you were to go by word count – 250 words per page, it ends up being a hair over 77,500 words. Granted, this was my first book, and I had a lot to learn about creating a novel-sized work so part of it had to do with the learning process.
I try to write every day – at least something to keep myself moving forward. It isn’t always successful, but as long as I keep thinking about writing, or the story, or even a specific approach to a scene and moving forward on some level every day I feel like my goals will never be insurmountable.
This is the creation side of things. There’s also slightly more – the revision process which involves an editor and beta readers, last minute tweaks, and so on, but that’s more of a polishing and preparation for release than full-on writing to create.
The basic process – if one were to boil it down to its essence – is this: create, review, redirect, create, review, redirect, create. And all the while when I can’t be at the keyboard I try to think of the story I’m writing on some level.
MondayBlogs – The next Monday Blogger is Kasper Beaumont, a fellow #RaveReviewsBookClub member. Be on the lookout for her post on Monday, June 9th!
Roderick Davidson 