People ask how I write. I tell them with a pen in a journal.
I really don’t have any set rituals for my writing. Sometimes I do write with pen and journal, especially if I’m going out to a place where my laptop would be too cumbersome, like the doctor’s office or a restaurant. Usually, though, I’ve either got the laptop or at least the iPad with me. I put up with the weight of the former in order to have Scrivener and all of my research material readily at hand. The iPad is lightweight, but doesn’t have the storage capacity of the laptop and Pages isn’t quite as satisfying as Word to me.
When I’m at home, I write in my office, which is a cluttered room full of books and papers (along with some of my craft stuff that I don’t have space for in the bedroom). The desk is in one corner. I keep my research books on the shelf to the left of the desk, and the writing manuals on the bookshelf to the right. The desk itself is usually stacked with research material: books, magazines, clippings, and such. I also have two cork-boards, but I often forget to post the clippings onto those.
I’m not very disciplined, I’m afraid. I’m not one of those writers who gets up at sunrise, sits down, and cranks out three hours of work before their day job. I’m lucky to get in thirty minutes before work; I’m just not a morning person. I try to get in another thirty minutes or more before bed on the days that I work (12-hour days take a lot out of you).
When I first get up, I have to wait for the caffeine to kick in, so I check my email and reply to anything needed. Then, I check Facebook and post something for my readers. I post a writing prompt every day on Twitter, so I do that next, and then my electronic “chores” are done. After that, depending on my caffeine levels and whether or not I have to go to work, I either get down to writing or check WikiAnswers and get in my monthly quota as a supervisor. If I’m off work at the day job, I usually try to get in a blog post.
I started out trying to write the novel in chronological order, proceeding neatly from Chapter One to the end. This gets tough sometimes, so when I started this final edit I also started skipping around. If I get stuck on one chapter, I just move to another one and rework that one until whatever idea I need for the previous one comes to me. I’m still making progress; it’s just not linear progress.
I get ideas at odd times, too. Sometimes I’ll have a vivid dream that finds its way into a story. Sometimes a stray comment strikes a chord, or something I see on the streets may inspire me. And sometimes things just hit me. I ask a lot of questions, too. “What if Emily decides to use her new reporting skills to investigate the lads?” “What if Ned is obsessed with ‘just the right way’ to go about housekeeping?” “What would Kye think if Chance lets Agent Kirkham have some of the money from the Union Pacific job?”
I suppose you’d say my writing habits are as eclectic as I am. I bounce around, working on this part or that and coming up with ideas in the middle of the night. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, with Facebook, Twitter and this blog, and I’m hoping to add an email newsletter once I get a good enough following. I’ve got the sort of ADD personality to handle this, however; my style certainly won’t work for everyone.
The important thing, when you’re working on a piece, is to keep writing. If you can’t work every single day, work as often as you can. Practice makes perfect, and every step you take brings you closer to the end. It’s easy to get discouraged when you’re in the middle of the thing, and it looks as if you’ve got so much ahead of you that you’ll never finish. I’ll be talking about ways to stay positive in a later column. For now, the take-away message is: write, write, and write some more.