My Story
Let Me Tell You More About Myself
Rather than bore with you boring facts about my life I thought I’d talk about my writing process.
Hmm, my writing process… let’s see, that’s like a choice between putting my, ah, **cough** quirks on full display or admitting to my inability to do just about anything in a normal, logical, and rational manner, which, I guess, ties back into my quirks.
To be honest, I’m cringing, more than a little, at the thought of revealing the ‘rules’ or ‘procedures’ I follow when writing a novel.
Basically, because I have none.
Yep. There you have it! Confession time!
There’s no structure. No plan. There’s no set sequence of things I do. I’ve never written a storyboard in my life, nor mapped out each chapter. And while I’m being honest I may as well admit if I ever did, I’d probably rebel against myself. I can see it now—I’d join forces with the characters, stage a coup, flick myself the bird, maybe blow a raspberry or two, definitely some tongue poking out business, while throwing enough literary spanners in the works that the end story would look nothing like the storyboard!
LOL, a storyboard? I can’t even write in sequential order!
My characters are voices in my head. They are more real to me than most people I come across in my every day life. They live in my mind for a long time before I attempt to tell their story. We get to know each other in the same way I got to know that my friend in Germany, Cordula, likes Marks & Spencer’s Empress Tea.
Ask me and I could tell you Noah’s favorite color, how he takes his coffee, the names of his childhood pets, and when he shared his first kiss.
I could tell you the sporting teams Jaxon follows, the music he listens to, and that he broke his wrist at the age of nine. But more than that, I could tell you what moves him to tears and what makes him laugh until his stomach aches.
So how do the boys tell me their stories? They talk to me and show me movie clips. If I’m lucky they may show them in chronological order, but I have to say, that’s a rarity. For instance, Noah showed me the opening scene of him sitting lonely and depressed in a bar and then the final scene where….
Hahahaha, bet you thought I was going to reveal the ending! Sorry! No can do! I may be blonde but I’m not that blonde!
As to all the events that happened between the opening scene to the closing one, they were presented to me out of order. Does that make the writing difficult? At times, yes. There were many occasions where I did the metaphorical sitting the boys down and saying, ‘Okay, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me how you got from here to here.’ (On a side note, having been a mother came in handy at those times. You have to love the effect of the ‘mum’ voice, even on a fictional creature!)
When the boys are being slow to reveal the next part of their journey to me, I go over what they’ve already told me. I change a word, add a sentence, take another out, I expand on what they’ve told me, I contract, I correct, and I edit. In other words, I tweak like crazy! (Have just realized I’m admitting to another quirk…)
And then when they’re talking to me once more, I do it all again!
By the end, I must admit, I surprise myself that it all makes sense and flows with no gaping holes or awkward leaps. I guess the boys look out for me in that respect, the same way I look out for them. Then again, we’re friends and that’s what friends do!
