My Inspiration and process

I wanted to jot down some information about what inspires me in my writing and the process I have from “book idea” to “polished manuscript.”

I’ve been attending many writing classes through the Writers League of Texas (WLT) and have met many other local writers, both published and unpublished. Everyone I’ve talked with have different ways that they are inspired. From dreams, to real life drama, to catch phrases they have heard … everyone is inspired in so many ways.

I’m inspired by songs. I love listening to music and I enjoy love ballads. Throughout the day I have internet radio stations playing in the background while I work. I love just having some background noise. Many times a song will play that will get my attention. There is usually something in the lyrics that will bring an image or a scene into my mind. I think about the scene and let the story tell itself.

The software tool I use to write my novels is StoryBlue. I love it. I first come up with several scenes in my head that I think would make a powerful story, and I write an outline using StoryBlue chapters as a guide. The outline is written sequentially, but I do not write my book sequentially. I write whatever scene in the outline I feel the most passionate about that day. I tend to skip around, but remain true to the outline. In about 2-3 months I have a very rough draft of a book which is about 100,000 words in length. That’s when the editing begins.

My first novel, Eternal Service, took me six weeks to write. Just 24 months later, about 20 revisions on my part, several critique partners reviewing it, alpha readers and beta readers tearing it apart, a professional editor looking at it, and now a line editor tweaking it … and it is almost done!

It’s a long process. Of course, if I didn’t have a full time job, I could focus more on my writing and shorten the time line. Maybe one day … sigh.

Here are some stages broken down on my process once I have the story initially written:

• I have a first draft of my story.
• Because I write un-sequentially, I will read the manuscript a few times in its entirety looking for inconsistencies within the story itself. I also look for any redundancy in the story.
• I edit the manuscript using what I’ve learned in the book, “The First Five Pages,” by Noah Lukeman. I love this book. I also have other books in my personal library that help me with this step. Basically what I’m looking for here is just to rewrite any scene that doesn’t pop out as spectacular in my opinion. I’m really only creative in the mornings. After 5pm my writing just tanks. I rewrite looking for redundancy of words, paragraphs that start too similarly, any verb tense issues, grammar issues, etc. I also run Word spell and grammar check.
• I read the manuscript in it’s entirety again, this time looking for POV mistakes.
• I read the manuscript for each individual character to ensure that the character’s actions and words are true to their personality.
• I read the manuscript again, this time looking for the pacing of the scenes. Are the fight scenes quick paced? Are their any scenes that are just hefty boat anchors weighing down the story? etc.
• After many, many revisions on the first draft, I now have a second draft.
• The 2nd draft is off to my critique groups. These are writers who are friends of mine who will edit the book looking for any mechanical errors I may have missed. I do the same for them as well and it’s a nice arrangement. Once I compile all their critiques, I have my 3rd draft.
• The manuscript is now ready for my alpha readers. These people love reading this genre and will give me their honest opinions on whether or not the book is a good paranormal romance story idea. They give me their thoughts on the characters, if the story line makes sense to them, etc. This reading group is reviewing the content and characters only. They are not professional editors; they know what they enjoy reading though and are my target audience.
• I gather the reading groups insights and apply them to the manuscript. After many, many revisions I now have a 4th draft.
• The 4th draft goes off to a professional editor who loves this genre of book. After working with an editor I have the 5th draft.
• The 5th draft is given to a line editor. She will review every single word in the story and make suggestions. After reviewing her work, I have a 6th draft.
• The 6th draft is then given back to my beta reading group for their final approval. As avid fans of the paranormal genre, they can give me feedback in a matter of days.
• I rewrite what needs to be tweaked. I read the book a few times and then I’ll print out a few copy for myself from a POD printer as a book. I now have a final draft.
• I send one copy of the final draft to myself through snail mail and leave the package unopened as a poor man’s copyright.
• I go to the government’s website and copyright my completed manuscript. At this point in time I do not intend to edit the manuscript again. The next stop is to the publisher where (if I go traditional route) the publishing house’s editor may want some rewrites.
• The final draft of the manuscript is published into a book.

The process takes a long time, but it is well worth it.