W: My Writing Process Blog Tour

  

I was going to put this off to next week, but I realized that I needed a post about writing for Saturday. . . a post on the letter W.  Sounds like a good fit!

Last week blogger and writer of great stories for all ages, Jemima Pett, tagged me in the "My Writing Process" blog tour. My mission: to answer three questions about my writing process, and to tag three other writers.

First the questions:

1.  What am I working on?
Too many things!  I am working on edits for a middle grade fantasy, a humorous take on the genre which I hope I will be able to send to beta readers in a week or so.  I'm also writing a bit here and there on a third Ninja Librarian book, focusing more on young Peggy Rossiter, Big Al's math prodigy student.  Then there's Death By Trombone, the second Pismawallops PTA mystery, which I drafted back in November and am itching to get my hands on.  Several other projects (like a short-story collection) are also running around in my head and have to be firmly stuffed back into a dark room to keep them from sprouting too fast (can I mix the metaphor any more, if I really, really try?).
   
2.  Why do I write what I do?
Ideas come in and demand to be developed.  Or characters.  Halitor the Hero (the tongue-in-cheek fantasy up next) was sparked by a bit of flash fiction that I wrote.  In that story, a hero was aging and at the end of his career, but it made me wonder how he got there.  What I found when I took him back to his teens was a very different person!  Maybe not even the same character.  I write the stories and characters that come to me, but I write it all with humor because I can't write any other way (not an have it be anything anyone would want to read).

3.  How does my writing process work?
Well, it's evolving.  And maybe, as Facebook has it, it's complicated.  I have mostly in the past had a spark of an idea, or a character (on reflection, the character has usually come first), and just jumped in and started writing.  I've mostly known what genre I'm working in (though the jury is still out about genre re: the Ninja Librarian), but not where the story is going to go or how it'll get there.  With Death By Trombone, because I wanted to write it as a NaNo project and because I wanted to make editing it less of a gargantuan task than usual, I created an outline.  Sort of.  It definitely made writing easier, since when I ran into trouble I could look and see where I thought I was going.  It remains to be seen if it makes revising easier.  With luck, I start on that in a couple of weeks.


Now for the two writers I want to tag, to post about their own writing processes in the next week or two or so (it was supposed to be three, but hey, I put off asking until a little late. . . ):

Dixie Dawn Miller Goode has written a series of books about a boy named Duffy Barkley, who may have Cerebral Palsy but still  has no end of adventures; and a historical fiction with a touch of time travel, Double Time on the Oregon Trail. 

And last but definitely not least, Gus Sanchez blogs irreverently at Out Where the Buses Don't Run, and is working on his first novel.  Right, Gus? 

Check them out--go ahead and follow their blogs and see what they come up with.  I'm not sure I could come up with two more different writers, so maybe that can count for three.

I've been interviewed--Re-post

Gus Sanchez has just posted an interview with me on his fantastic blog, Out Where the Buses Don't Run.  Thanks, Gus, for the shout-out!  Swing on over and take a look. . . and subscribe to his musings on life and great reflections on writing.

Getting To Know You, Fellow Writers: Rebecca Douglass (aka “The Ninja Librarian”)

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Gus Sanchez

For my first entry in my planned ongoing series in which I interview fellow writers and bloggers, I got the chance to interview Rebecca Douglass, aka “The Ninja Librarian.” I first met Rebecca through Goodreads, via the “Running With Scissors” group.  more

The Next Big Thing--Blog Hop

Thanks to Gus Sanchez at Out Where the Buses Don't Run for tagging me for this one!  He's answered the questions, and now it's my turn.  Then I'm supposed to tag five more writers to participate--so if you write and read this, brace yourself, as you may be next!

Rules:
Mention the person who tagged you at the beginning of your post (check).
Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress) and/or new release on your blog (check).
Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.  They're supposed to answer the questions next Wednesday, as I understand it. (See bottom of page).

The Questions:
1. What is the working title of your book?
Not very exciting here, and one of the things I am, um, working on. For now, The Ninja Librarian Returns.

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book?
Since this one is a sequel, it would be cheating to just say that the idea came from the first book.  So I'll explain that the original idea for the Ninja Librarian came from a smart-alec comment ("I don't get mugged.  I'm trained to kill") made by a librarian I was working with at the time.  As he was near retirement, it was clear that a Ninja Librarian didn't need to be young--and the idea of a white-haired librarian who could literally kick the rowdies out of the library appealed.  The rest just tumbled out in the form of the first story in The Ninja Librarian, and I had my main characters, setting, etc.

3. What genre does your book fall under?
Juvenile historical humorous fiction.  Though the "juvenile" part is under some dispute.  Probably best to just leave it as pseudo-historical fictional humor?

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I truly can't answer this, as I don't follow movies enough to know any of the actors.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
The Ninja Librarian returns to Skunk Corners and further absurdity ensues, with clever solutions to many problems and occasional bouts of Ninja-fighting.

6.  If you plan to publish, will your book be self-published or published traditionally?
I intend to go on as I've begun.  The Ninja Librarian Returns will be self-published, sometime in February.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your MS?
Let's see. . . I started almost immediately on publishing the first volume in Feb. 2012, and sent my revised draft to my editors in mid-October.  I think the draft was done sometime in late September (you didn't really think we kept that close track of stuff like this, did you?).  That would make it (counts on fingers) 6 1/2 or 7 months.  Far and away my fastest, the result of a combination of practice and setting a solid goal for myself.

8.  What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Hard to do this without sounding totally conceited, but I see flavors of Richard Peck, Mark Twain, and Robert McCloskey's Homer Price.  Though I'm more a pigeon pecking around the feet of the greats than anything like comparable to them.

9.  Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Well, the general source of the series I describe in question #2.  I was inspired to jump right into a sequel, however, by the very kind reception of the first book.  I have been equally inspired to continue by periodic queries from readers as to when I was coming out with more--nothing like an appreciative audience to make a writer want to write!  I don't even care if my biggest fan is my Mom's best friend.  When she demands more, I want to provide it.  Then there was this.

10.  What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
 Skunk-fu.  Terror in the dentist's chair.    Errors of judgement made by every leading character.

Now to tag the other bloggers:
Dixie Goode
Bookworm Smith
Scott Roche
Will MacMillan Jones
Karen's Different Corners

Tag!  You're it!  Be sure to drop in on these folks in a week and see what they are up to.

Get on your backside and write. . . Thanks, Chuck Wendig!

Just read the best rant ever for motivating a writer.  Chuck Wendig writes a blog that is irreverent, and uses language I avoid since I write for kids. . . but he certainly knows how to remind me that the only way to write is to sit my backside down in the chair (or whatever) and do it.  And no excuses, failure is acceptable but quitting isn't.  He's very clear on the difference between the two.

My favorite bit (sorry, Chuck, I had to clean it up in case any of the kiddies find me):

What, you think you’re the first writer who doesn’t think [s]he can do it?
Uh, hello, please to meet every writer ever. We’re all . . .  headcases. We all hit a point in every piece of work where we hate it, hate ourselves, hate publishing, hate the very nature of words . . . We all bang our heads against our own presumed inadequacies and uncertainties. Writing and storytelling isn’t a math problem with a guaranteed solution. It’s threading a needle inside our heart with an invisible string strung with dreams and nightmares.  We are afforded zero guarantees.

I'll be hanging onto that image of an invisible string inside my heart for a long time.  Wish I'd thought of it!


Here's the whole rant.  Warning: Chuck is motivational, sometimes the way the drill sergeant from every movie you ever saw about Boot Camp is motivational.  Enter at your own risk.

And thanks to Gus Sanchez for tipping me off to Chuck in general and this rant in particular.  Gus isn't half bad at the motivational rant himself.

Every Author Needs a Mission Statement

I just stole this idea from Gus Sanchez and his blog, Out Where the Buses Don't Run.  (An idea he freely admits he stole from another blogger, who stole it from another. . . you get the picture).  Or, rather, I'm taking up the challenge Gus issued after a bit of discussion with his readers, that every author should craft a mission statement, just as a business or a non-profit has a mission statement to explain why they bother doing what they do.  So here's my attempt.

I write to have fun creating stories that others will have fun reading.  To justify my fun, I also make a  commitment to the hard work that lies between my fun and their fun--revision, editing, and proofing to make visiting my worlds an escape from reality with no bumps on the road.

Or maybe I should just refer to my experience a couple of weeks ago with the children who see me as an author first and foremost, and stick with that mission: Don't make liars of those children.  Sit down and write.

That's a pretty all-encompassing mission statement for an author.