Writing Process Blog Tour

There's been this tag of sorts going around, masquerading under the fancy title of The Writing Process Blog Tour. I've wanted to participate for some time, and nearly took advantage of one blogger giving the blanket whoever-wants-this-can-take-it tagging, but I persevered in hopes that one day, some author would remember me when doing up their post and lo and behold, it happened. I was tagged by Jaye L. Knight, one of my favorite authors. I'm thoroughly honored.

Anyways, on to the questions.

 
1) What am I working on?

Um ... the easy answer would be writing My Kingdom for a Quest and three more stories for my next short story collection ... but I write best when I multitask, and at the moment ... I have the following documents pulled up (Besides Kingdom and the short stories):

Half-Hidden
HaV Academy
The New Division
Just Another SciFi Novel
Water Princess, Fire Prince
Worth of a King
Bookania book 4.

PLUS, I have sitting beside me in notebooks:

The Nine Gems of Virtue
Rizkaland book 2
Footprints of a Mermaid

So ... I'm a bit busy at the moment.

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

I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. When I write, I don't worry about how it's different. Much of the time, I just scavenge around for cliches that I can reuse and re-purpose. And I write in such a variety of genres - mostly fantasy, but even there, I cover all of the bases. Dragons, fairies, retellings, epic quests ... I try everything.

But no one has my brain, no one has written these stories before. No one has used my twists, my vision. I put a bit of me into every one of my stories.

3) Why do I write what I do? 

Because they are the stories burning in my heart, crying to be spilled through my fingers. I like taking old, tired plots and giving them new light. I like bringing up topics that people should think about it. I've been given stories to write, and write them I shall.

4) How does my writing process work?

As you can probably guess from my list of books I'm working on write now, it's a bit chaotic, but after the publication of four books, I've developed something of a rhythm.

I start with an spark, which could be anything from the idea of dragons who take on a human form after they are slain to the idea of a girl who has never been allowed to cut her hair. I mull on this idea for a few days to a few months, until I discover the heart of the story, which may be directly connected to the spark, or it may have nothing in common and I end up throwing that original idea out entirely.

Eventually, I get excited enough about the story that I feel that I'm ready to start writing it. I make it about two to five chapters before I realize that I started in the wrong place, or I'm going the wrong direction, and, armed with this knowledge, I scrap that notebook or document and start over.

This time I (usually) make it to the end, and once I reach those delicious words, I put the book away and work on something else. (Although sometimes I hand it off to my Grandma or someone so they can tell me what they think of it). Once I get back to it, I decide it needs a complete rewrite, so I plunge into that. It's usually a painless process, rewriting, though it isn't always.

Once it's rewritten, I send it off to my editors, do up a cover art, then hit the publish button.

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And I tag ... Jack.

Jack claims the title of Author, which makes her feel like a Time Lord when she capitalizes it. She has a sonic pen which deepens her Time Lord claims. She enjoys a good Science Fiction story though spends most of her time writing Fantasy and Steampunk, or a mixture of both.

You can learn more about Jack's other published work and upcoming books at her website,jacklewisbaillot.com