My Writing Process Blog Tour

I've been invited by Dorothy Dreyer to participate to My Writing Process Blog Tour. Apparently it's been going on for a while, and many writers have been part of the tour already. I wasn't aware of the tour's existence, so many thanks to Dorothy for including me.

The rules are simple: I'm supposed to answer the following 4 questions and then nominate 3 other writers to continue the tour.

1) What am I working on? 

I'm on the last leg of writing the main novel in the Broken People series. It started with an idea for a novella, but as I wrote on it during the last year's NaNo, it turned out there was enough story for a whole novel. What I hadn't envisaged was the series of short stories focused on the characters' background. I honestly hadn't thought they'd be so interesting, but while writing about them, I discovered they were. So the good news is the novel will come out accompanied by a short story collection called The Nightingale Circus Collection. Yes, the story deals with a heist and a very special circus crew. As usual, there's quite a bit of action and drama, and why not, a bit of romance, too.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

I usually try not to compare myself or my work with other people as we all come from a specific background, and it's normal for us to be different. I have been told, however, that my stories tend to vary from the norm quite often, exposing the readers to worlds and ideas they hadn't thought about. I guess there's a good reason why my screen name is Weird Vision.

In the case of the Broken People series, the circus crew builds and repairs prosthetics as a side business, and all of its members are outcasts in one way or another. It's a story about fixing people, not only on a physical level, about perseverance, fighting for your goals, changing them when it doesn't work out, acceptance, and finding your place in the world, a place where you can be happy even if it's not the one you have been consciously looking for.

3) Why do I write what I do? 

This is going to sound like a cliche, but I write what I enjoy reading. It's mostly sci fi and fantasy, but I've been known to go astray and try other genres too. At the end of the day, I write for myself, not for the readers or the critics. If something feels right to me, then it will go in the story, regardless of how others will receive it. As far as I'm concerned, if in six months or a year from now I re-read something and still find it entertaining, then I'm happy.

4) How does my writing process work?

I write 1,000 words per day, except for the weekends. Since I usually know from the start how a story begins and ends, the first draft consists of getting the two of them connected through action and dialogue. The second draft adds descriptions and character development. The third draft is reserved for polishing the language. Then the manuscript goes to my beta readers. The fourth draft incorporates their suggestions, followed by one last read through. I constantly feel like I could do one more draft, but I know when to stop or I would never get to write anything else. I keep ideas in a text file and one-line scene descriptions in an Excel file. I don't plot everything in advance, but I have a good idea of the overall arch and, most times, I know what's going to happen in the next three or four scenes before getting to actually write them. Odd habit: while writing something, I plot a completely different story at night before going to sleep.

Next week, look for answers coming from:

Ardyth DeBruyn - Ardyth DeBruyn is a native Oregonian with a restless nature and a degree in Anthropology. After hiking over 1500 miles across Europe and living on the Mexican border for a year, she settled back in the Pacific Northwest (for now) to write fantasy stories. She has decided she can type herself into adventures faster than walk.

Alina Popescu - Writer, traveler, and coffee addict; Alina Popescu has been in love with books all her life. She started writing when she was ten and even won awards in local competitions. She has always been drawn to sci-fi, fantasy, and the supernatural realm, which explains her deep love for vampires and is also to blame for this trilogy.

Travis Sullivan - Travis Sullivan has lived in Tokyo, Japan for the past six years and writes urban fantasies based there. His call to action (writing) was the big earthquake in 2011 that pushed him down the path of awesome. He graduated from the University of Alabama — Roll Tide — with a degree in political science which helps him interweave complex secret histories into his worlds.