I’ve been tagged by the awesome Meghan for the My Writing Process Blog Tour. I’m really excited (and slightly scared) to answer these questions and play along! So, let’s go!

1. What Am I Working On?

Currently I am editing a Lewis Carroll inspired short story called “Rain, Rain” and writing a short haunted house story. I’m having a lot of fun with both of them and am just very pleased with myself because both of these stories I was very concerned would turn out awful, and neither one has! Whoo!

I just finished the really ugly zero draft of my project “Blessed” which is a YA novel about a hot-headed superhero in training who learns there is nothing she won’t do to save her mother, even if it means teaming up with a supervillain. It’s a hot mess of a draft but I’m really proud of myself for sticking with it and finishing.

I’m also working on a few other short stories, but those are still in the ‘thinking about it’ phase.

2. How Does My Work Differ From Others of Its Genre?

With a lot of the pulp stories I write, I think that I add in a female voice that has been lacking, and tell stories that look at things in a little bit different of a way. I think everyone has an interesting way of looking at the world and I’m happy to share mine around me. I’m not afraid to blur the lines, and to dance around with various genres from horror to romance.

I don’t like excessive amounts of gore and I have a fondness for bones and bright colors. Colorfully morbid is the best way I’ve been described and I think that translate beautifully into my writing.

3. Why Do I Write What I Do?

Because I don’t know what else to do? I never know how to answer questions like these because the only reason is that I write what I write because those are the stories I’m excited about, and that I want to see. I try to write things I would like to read and that excite me, sometimes I miss the mark and sometimes I nail it, but I always try to get the words on the page to share what I see.

4. How Does My Writing Process Work?

I use to try to set up a specific writing process. I’d light a candle, make a cup of tea, and sit at my desk, but what I started to realize was that all I was doing was complicating everything. Now I have a simple trick: when I have time I sit down and write. I write until I reach at least 1000 words then I take a break and reward myself. Sometimes, I’ll make a deal that I can’t eat dinner until I’ve written 1000 words, and I can’t shower until 2000 words.

I try to reward myself for working and staying on task. I use timers and race to see how many words I can get in during a period of time. The main thing that I do is write every day, even though some days I just write out a plan of what I want to write over the next few weeks.

Generally speaking I write with a soundtrack for whatever I’m working on, and I work from beginning to end making changes as I go in the first draft. I’m very much a ‘get it all on the page right this second’ person and then I’ll go back to edit. I’ve tried doing things out of order by writing the end first but it just doesn’t work for me and I end up confusing myself about what’s going on.

Lately I’ve been more organized about what I write. I track the number of words I write every day and log my total word count for the week, this has really helped me see how much I can do and to schedule accordingly. I even have a little system where I give myself a gold star sticker on the calendar for every day I write more than 1000 words. It’s kind of lame, but it works for me.

HOWEVER, writing processes can change all the time and what works for one story, might not work for the next. People change all the time so never be afraid to shake up your routine and try a new way of doing things. You might learn something else works way better than your usual method.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Now here’s where I’m suppose to tag someone to do this but almost every single one of my friends has already done this, so… if you’re reading this and have a blog consider yourself TAGGED!

To participate, write a blog post next week and…

Acknowledge the person and the site who invited you into the tour (that’d be me and you’d link back to this post.)
Label your post as part of the My Writing Process Blog Tour.
Answer these same four questions about your writing process in the post.
Nominate and link to up to three people to participate who would then post their answers the week after yours.
Let me know in the comments if you’re going to participate, so I can add your link to this post.