Tag Archives: How I Write

My Writing Process Rebecca Raisin

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What have you written, past and present?

I have written eighteen romance novels over a period of about ten years. At the moment I’m writing a book set in Venice and it’s been a joy exploring all the hidden gems albeit with the help of travel blogs and google images. It’s always a lot of fun to research a location to bring it to life in my stories. 

  • What are you promoting now?

My latest release, Elodie’s Library of Second Chances is about the power of stories and second chances. Elodie escapes the family media empire to take the librarian job in small town Willow Grove. She hopes to save the library but with limited funds and resources she’s fighting a losing battle. Until she stumbles upon some real-life stories that need sharing. She decides to lend people to share their stories in the hopes the community will be more accepting of those on the periphery. Everything is going well until her own past gets scrutinised and people find out she’s not who she portrayed herself to be. But don’t we all deserve a second chance? 

  • Tell us a bit about your writing process

I write the first draft fast with a brief outline to guide me. I don’t like to plot in too much detail as I prefer the characters to guide me when they come to life on the pages. In saying that, I do a full character profile for the main characters before I start. I start with their physical descriptions and then dive into what sort of person they are. Do they cry in sad movies? What kind of laugh do they have? What do they want most in the world? What are they scared of? And that gives me a wide scope to work with when it comes time to add some conflict into the story and know how they’ll react to certain situations and where to push them that little bit further. 

  • How do you structure a book?

Every book is different depending on the goal of the heroine but I usually start with a hook, a catalyst that changes her life and forces her to act. The character profile comes in handy here because I will already know what she doesn’t want, or what she fears so I will then move the plot forward by making her face those fears. I use the general idea of what is her goal? Her motivation? What conflict can I add to the mix to make her work for what she wants ahead of the resolution. I also focus on friendship as well as romance so these factor in too but for my heroines the priority is always about them finding their own way in the world. 

  • What do you find hard about writing?

Deadlines! They creep up so fast! It feels like I’ve got all the time in the world and then two minutes later the book is due. Luckily, I love editing, so once I get the first draft done, I enjoy the editing process a lot more. 

  • What do you love about writing?

The best part of writing is when a story comes together in such a way that those characters are in your heart and on your mind and you know you’ve connected to the story on a deep level. The Venice novel I’m writing now feels that way, almost as though they’re real people and not inventions of mine. It’s the best feeling when that happens! 

My Writing Process Ray Star

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Ray Star, author, writer, how I write, my writing processWhat you have written, past and present

I wrote my first story when I was ten, scribbled untidily onto folded green paper, unevenly stapled together with crayon illustrations on every other page. My teacher had tasked our class with writing a story to include three things: a waiting room, a light switch and a wish. I opted to write a tale of a young girl who found herself in a magic waiting room that gave those worthy a wish, if fate called upon them to use the light switch. I received my first A+ and have wanted to be an author ever since.

After my school years, I dabbled in freelance journalism, covering ‘real life’ stories for tabloids and the women’s weekly’s in my twenties but found this mind numbingly painful. To the point, it put me off writing for a while. I ended up starting my own PR firm and then, life got in the way, as it so often does, and my dream of one day becoming a successful author was lost to the 9 to 5 routine and all that falls in between.

It wasn’t until quite recently in 2018 that the idea for a story found me, and it wouldn’t let me be. It would find me just before I fell asleep at night, an array of nameless faces that needed their stories to be read, heard and understood. The title came to me when I was at lunch with my mother one afternoon, and a year later, my first draft copy of Earthlings – The Beginning was ready.

  • What you are promoting now

My debut novel Earthlings – The Beginning, is book one of a YA Fantasy trilogy with a message to the narrative, and launches on August 12th, this year.

Earthlings is the story of a young girl named Peridot, raised with the realities of her world hidden from her by an overbearing mother. One day, a young boy Euan unexpectedly comes into her life only for him to leave as quickly as he came, from that moment onwards, her world is never the same. Peridot leaves the clutches of her mother’s home in the hopes of finding her friend, only to discover all she believed to be true, to be something else entirely. 

We follow her journey into a world filled with magick (yes magick with a ‘K’), wonders and horrors that Peridot couldn’t have fathomed in her wildest dreams – or nightmares. For every step she manages to get closer to her friend, something new and unknown gets in her way. There are many twists and turns in the Earthlings tale but ultimately Peridot’s story is one of finding friendship against all odds and trying to do the right thing – no matter the consequence.

www.raystarbooks.com

  • A bit about your process of writing

I’m going to be completely honest with you – I have no process! I wrote most of Earthlings when I was pregnant with my first born, which was utter bliss. Just me and my bump and a fresh pot of tea, writing away by an open window with the breeze fluttering past to keep us company.

The remainder of Earthlings was written with a new-born, which never in my wildest dreams could I have fathomed would be as hard as it was, but I did it, and then, just to make things that little bit harder for myself, another bump came along. Bump number one is now aged two, and his brother, is eight months.

Writing time now, is done in the rare moments of quiet, which admittedly, are far and few, but when they find me, the story flows and I find ‘the zone’ as I call it, quite easily. Writing is the one thing in this world, other than my boys and a good strong cuppa coupled with dark chocolate digestives, that brings me peace.

  • Do you plan or just write?

Planning to write when you have children, is like planning to have an early night when you have children. It does not happen. It works in my favour to not make plans, and then by not making plans, enables the possibility of that plan taking place… if you follow!

  • What about word count?

For a story to be the best it can be, I have to allow it to flow naturally. If I force myself to write a set number of words, they become in danger of becoming precisely that – just words. I used to set the target of writing 200 words a day but by doing that, I did the opposite. Word counts seem to be counterproductive for my style of writing and I prefer to enjoy the story as I write it, whether its 50 words or 500. The story will write itself if you give it time.

  • How do you do your structure?

Alike the above, I had no set structure for Earthlings, I sat down and wrote the story as it came to me when I was in the moment. Although, Earthlings is book one of a trilogy and with book two, there are specific moments that needed to happen, so I made a point of having a list of key events that I ticked off as they were complete. 

Editing wise; I tend to write a chapter or two, read through and do a light edit, then keep writing. This way, when I come to edit properly when my first draft is complete, most of the leg work is done and the editing process isn’t as daunting.  

  • What do you find hard about writing?

The environmental cost of books plays on my mind a lot. Whilst I’m over the moon to finally be an author, it bothers me that my work comes at the cost of trees. Beautiful beings that have lived on this planet longer than I have are sacrificed for the literature we know and love. This bothers me more than I can put into words. 

My publisher, Chronos Publishing, thankfully, is very supportive of my concerns and has ensured that Earthlings, where possible, is to be printed on recycled paper. However, we were unable to get this secured with one distributor (Amazon) so I have recently launched the #ReadGreen campaign to hopefully encourage Amazon to offer sustainable printing options to the publishing industry.

You can support the Read Green campaign with a simple signature via www.change.org/read_green/ 

I have also pledged to plant 1 tree per book sale via Ecologi to combat any Amazon sales of my book, the Earthlings forest is available to view via my website.

  • What do you love about writing?

Everything. Writing to me, is as wonderous as magick. It is the ability to make your wildest dreams a reality. The ability to breathe life into beings, places and creatures that we dismiss as unbelievable. Pure escapism. If you’re a good enough writer. Anything is believable. If it harm none, so mote it be.

Love and light

Ray Star

@RayStarBooks

www.raystarbooks.com

Earthlings by Ray Star is out now by Chronos Publishing, £8.99

Anna Kent My Writing Process

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Anna Kent, author, writer, What you have written, past and present?

I was a journalist before I became an author, so I’ve written an awful lot of articles for publications in the UK and the UAE, and I was also a columnist for The Telegraph for six years and for Stylist Arabia for a year.

In terms of fiction, I have four psychological suspense novels out under my own name, Annabel Kantaria. They are Coming Home, The Disappearance, The One That Got Away and I Know You.

My fifth novel, called The House of Whispers under the pen name of Anna Kent, is due to be published on August 5.

I’m currently writing my sixth novel. It’s yet to get a title but I’m really excited about the premise!

What you are promoting now?

I’m promoting The House of Whispers by Anna Kent.

Tell us a bit about your process of writing?

I try to treat writing as I would an office job, so I have a strict routine: I put in about three or four solid hours in the morning, then I try to go to the gym or do an exercise class before lunch, then I fit in another hour or so of writing before it’s time to pick up my son from school. 

If I can, I’ll work again in the afternoon but it’s not always possible. I never work at night and I try not to work at the weekend, too.

In terms of the writing process, every book begins with the seed of an idea: sometimes it’s the ending, sometimes the twist, or, in the case of the book I’m currently working on, it was the inciting incident – the event that kicks off the whole story. I try and flesh this out, sketching out how the character will change throughout the story, and working out a plot that will carry that internal change and also allow room for a few duplicitous scenes, red herrings and twists.

I try to use a system where I write scenes on index cards and move them about but, generally, once I’ve got a foggy idea of the story in my head, I just want to start writing. It’s a mistake to start too soon, though, as I invariably then get stuck about 20,000 words in because I haven’t planned enough.

There’s always a point, about halfway or three quarters of the way into a manuscript that I lose faith and start to doubt myself. Writing is a solitary process and it can be a challenge to keep up both the momentum and the self-belief. You just have to push on through and trust the process. Having a good support network of friends and family really helps.

How do you do structure your books?

They’re all different. Most of them have multiple viewpoints because I love seeing events through different people’s eyes. 

In The House of Whispers, interviews with one of the characters are interlaced throughout the narrative, only you don’t know who is interviewing the person, nor why – you just know that something major has happened. The Disappearance started half-way through then tracked back, and it also had two timelines set about 50 years apart. I Know You was told with the benefit of hindsight, which allowed me to do a lot of foreshadowing to keep up the suspense, and The One That Got Away had alternate chapters from the points of view of a husband and wife. 

I do love a clever structure, but they can be very tricky to pull off.

What do you find hard about writing?

The hardest thing for me is trying to come up with that million-dollar best-selling idea: the high-concept story that becomes the most talked-about book of the year!

I also hate it when I get stuck in my plot. It happens at some point in every book, and I’m antsy and stressed until I get through that block and start writing properly again.

Other than that, just trying to be creative, day in, day out, with little or no feedback on how I’m doing, and no colleagues to bounce ideas off. Keeping faith in myself that I can do it. Not knowing if my book is any good or not until I submit it to my agent when it’s finished. That’s tough. 

What do you love about writing?

I love the creative freedom at the start of a new book, when the world really is your oyster. It’s like playing God. You have the power to create a whole world, and to populate it with whomever you like, and to make whatever you want happen to those people. There’s nothing like starting a fresh story. Even better if you know it’s a really fabulous idea! 

Days when the words flow and the story just comes flying out through my fingers are also fabulous. There’s no feeling like it.

 

Susannah Wise: My Writing Process

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  • Susannah Wise: My Writing Process
      What you have written, past and present

 Like so many authors, I have always written stories, poems, and the beginnings of ‘novels’ that remained forever unfinished. As a young child these were complete with messy felt-tip illustrations and growing up, pieces of my work would appear in the school magazine each term. I’m still not sure of their merit, but Mum always thought they were great, and she obviously wasn’t biased. 

    In my late teens, I found myself in a long relationship with a playwright and screenwriter, and encouraged by him, began a regular writing practice between acting jobs: short stories, plays, more poetry than I can recall; always poetry – I have an engraved Moleskine at home full of these personal noodlings. When I die, I dread to think of my family going through them. 

     In my thirties, frustrated with the quality of scripts I was reading (I am also an actor), I began to write screenplays and comedy pilots of my own. These would garner modest amounts of interest from the powers that be at television channels, but never reached fruition and they are now consigned to my ‘oh well’ drawer.

    In truth, it was only shock, when my father was given a terminal cancer diagnosis back in 2015, that propelled me into writing seriously. I think it made me reassess what my life and what I was waiting for. I tentatively started the novel that was to become This Fragile Earth, and discovered I loved everything about the daily practice of writing: the space and time long-form prose gave me in my head, the agency I had over my characters and the world-building. I haven’t stopped writing since.

     What are you promoting now?

    This Fragile Earth is my debut, and the hardback is out on 24th June of this year. It’s a post-apocalyptic survival story about a mother, Signy, and her six-year-old son, Jed, who following a tragic event, are forced to flee near-future London and travel to the Midlands to seek out the protagonist’s mother. When they get there, however, things are far worse than they could ever have imagined. The book is a grounded science fiction thriller, with at its centre, the beating heart between the two main characters.

If you’re a fan of John Wyndham, or perhaps Emily St Mandel’s Station Eleven, this is the book for you.

Susannah Wise: My Writing Process, my fragile earth

A bit about your process of writing, how do you do your structure, and do you plan or just write?

 I find it very hard to talk about ‘process’ when discussing art of any kind. I know some people are good at it, I’m not. I’ve written three books and for each one the process has been different. With This Fragile Earth the plot came to me quickly over the course of one night. With only a few small tweaks, I set about writing it directly from the ideas bubbling in my head. I already had a decent grounding in some of the themes in the book, although I made up almost all the ‘science’ myself. I even dreamt one of the main coding theories in there! In the course of completing it though, I did more research, attending lectures and reading books on the subject and so on. 

    My second novel, out next year, is a dark comedy about grief. When I set out writing it, I had no idea what it would be about, barring the bare bones. I had no plot, only two characters and not a clue what the ending would be. I took part in the Faber Academy novel-writing course over six months in 2018 and completed an entire first draft. I really loved the ‘pants-ing’ rather than ‘planning’ nature of this book, though it did mean rather a lot of editing once finished, of course!

    My third novel is set around some dodgy goings-on in a small village in Cumbria. Before I began, I had a plot, all the characters, and a location, and wrote out each point at the start. I did research on some elements in the book (I can’t say what they are here without giving the game away!), but the setting is a place very familiar to me, so that helped a lot. A few plot points have moved within the process of writing it, but basically, I am sticking to my initial ideas. I began during lockdown in April last year and am still going strong: I was hoping the first draft would be about 75K words, but I think it will be closer to 100K. Its completion has been hampered by home-schooling, preparing This Fragile Earth for publication, editing my second book, and the fact my partner has been away for seven months for work since January. It’s been slow-going, but I’m hoping the book is no worse for it. 

    I tend to write in the morning for two hours if I can, either at 9.30 straight after dropping my son at school, or after a walk or some sort of exercise, around 11. I find it very hard to write in the afternoon for some reason but will force myself to if I’ve been unable to complete my daily words beforehand. I’m also an actor, and auditioning and learning lines, as well as acting work itself, eats into a vast amount of writing time. Saying that, there is a lot of hanging around when one is filming, so I always take my laptop with me and use the time to catch up on my word count. It’s a brilliant and unexpected bonus and has made me far less resentful about all the ‘wasted’ hours actors endure.

Most of the time I am not filming and will write at the kitchen table (without music) or kneeling on the rug in our living room, using the coffee table as a desk. I get terrible dead feet after I stand up and will often hobble around comically for half an hour trying to eradicate the pins and needles. I have a special foam support for my wrists too, as I tend to get RSI after a long period of typing. My eyes do go a bit squiffy after a long session of intense focus. Basically, I’m falling to pieces.

What about word count?

    I tend to set myself a very achievable 500 words per day (five days a week) when I’m drafting. This will take me around an hour to an hour and a half. Then another hour perhaps of reviewing the previous day’s words. I prefer to set a low bar as I find I work better if I’m hitting my target than setting unrealistic goals, then spending the rest of the day beating myself up for my failures. This helps me stay motivated, which is important when undertaking such a vast piece of work. 

    When I’m editing a completed draft, I can easily spend three or four hours at my desk and hardly even notice where the time has gone. Even more if I have line edits back from my publisher. I once spent ten hours working on notes from my agent. I would strongly advise against this. 

What do you find hard about writing?

Ha. Well, this is a tricky one to answer, because without meaning to sound like a plonker, I really feel – for me at least – that writing is the best job in the world. I guess if I had to say a couple of things, one would be the loneliness (though ironically, this is also one of the things I love about writing). It can be a little isolating spending all day with only the people in your head for company, before going out for a walk alone. Sometimes 24 hours can pass and the only person I will have spoken to is my 11- year-old son. Love him as I do, he’s not a great dinner table conversationalist. 

The other thing I find difficult is the mental responsibility. By this I mean that like the expression ‘this book isn’t going to write itself’, the completion of any book is entirely in the hands of the author. The manuscript sits like a patient pet waiting for attention, but if there happen to be other things going on in life, it requires huge amounts of discipline and mental energy to carve out time to honour this. Some days the words fly out, some they are like sticks in a muddy dam. It’s important to know when to just close the computer and get one with something else

What do you love about writing?

What’s not to love?! I love that no one else is there making me write, it is entirely my own work, that ‘being left alone’ feeling. I love that it allows time for introspection. I gain a great sense of inner peace from its practice. On top of this, having a whole world in the palm of one’s hand is just the greatest feeling. There is huge satisfaction in putting words in order so that they have rhythm and cadence, just like music. The joy when one reads back a passage and thinks ‘hmm, that isn’t half bad,’ is like nothing else. 

More than this though, is the vast pride and sense of achievement from completing a novel, especially when one gets to see it type-set, or in its proof form, or better still the actual finished version. It is an object created outside oneself, to be held in the hands of others, taking them to new places, and will it live on long after the author is dead and gone. I still can’t quite get my head around this concept. 

This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise is out now in hardback by Gollancz.

 

My Writing Process Ellen Alpsten

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Ellen Alpsten author photo 4 (c) Andreas StirnbergWriting ‘Her-story’ –

Tell us about what you have written?
When hearing about the heroines of my novels ‘Tsarina’ and ‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’, people’s eyes pop: ‘How did you find them?’ No wonder – both belong to the family of which its own Nikita Romanov said in 1669: ‘Our men are meek as maidens, and our women wild as wolverines.’ Both books are the first ever published novels about either lady. ‘Tsarina’ Catherine I. rose from illiterate serf to first reigning Empress of Russia, while the country morphed from backward nation to modern superpower. ‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’, Elizabeth, the only surviving of Peter the Great’s fifteen children, lived the opposite of her mother: she fell from unimaginable riches to rags, before triumphantly rising from rags to Romanov.

What you are promoting now?
‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’ – the second book in a planned quartet – is published in July 2021. It was a privilege to write. Elizabeth emerges from the strict historical setting of the Petrine era – the construction of St. Petersburg, old semi-Asian Muscovy fighting the new half-European Russia – as a very modern woman. At her parents’ death, friends turned foe. Barely out of her teens, she was impoverished and isolated; even loving her was a crime that warranted capital punishment. Yet even when her path proved to be stony, Elizabeth would not surrender. She decides to take what is hers – Russia’s throne – even if it comes at a terrible price.

Tell us a bit about your process of writing.
As a student, I worked as an assistant for the Parisian bestselling author Benoite Groult. Every evening I did my own writing in my little studio, 12 sqm in the 7th arrondissement: a million words before I ever got published. Nowadays, there is no writer’s block. The Muse has to present herself at 9.30 and she better bring coffee. Working on a PC is a blessing – I am in awe when seeing Dostoevsky’s handwritten manuscripts. To finish a novel is a challenge, yet the first draft is a drop in the ocean. Editing is schizophrenic, knowing the manuscript by heart yet reading it afresh countless times. Doing our best is a duty. Readers offer us their most valuable – their time, an ever-diminishing resource.

How do you structure a book?
Mme Groult’s advice for starting and structuring a novel was invaluable: ‘The first stanza is the novel en miniature.’ Which moment sums up the story’s conflict? A life’s ups and downs so not reel the reader in. Choose characters with care – who are they, why are they there, and how do they drive the story forward?

What do you find hard about writing?
Being a writer can be a Janus-faced existence. Lonely and introspective, at publication time the cruellest of lights may be shed on your innermost thoughts and feelings. The path to success is littered with rejection – in a former life, I was either a duck or a teflon-coated pan. Getting published traditionally is artistically the hardest challenge. A painting is judged in a second, a song listened to in three minutes. But convincing someone to read your 650-page tome?

What do you love about writing?

By writing, I am living my dream: making other people dream. The freedom we live, and the alternate worlds we create, are worth any moment of self-doubt. If you doubt, you work harder. Enjoy the trip, as the goals are forever shifting – and as utterly unattainable as the most elusive of lovers.

The paperback of Tsarina is published on the 24th June and the hardback of The Tsarina’s Daughter is out on 8th July,

My Writing Process Joe Thomas

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psycho, joe thomasWhat you have written, past and present

I am the author of a quartet of standalone but connected novels set in São Paulo, where I lived for ten years – Paradise City, Gringa, Playboy, and Brazilian Psycho. I have also published Bent, a historical crime novel set in Soho in the 1960’s and behind the lines in Italy during the Second World War, based on the life of war hero and notorious detective Harold ‘Tanky’ Challenor, who was in the SAS with my grandfather.

What you are promoting now

My latest novel, Brazilian Psycho, is an occult history of the city of São Paulo from 2003 – 2019, told through the lens of real-life crimes. It reveals the dark heart at the centre of the Brazilian social-democrat resurgence and the fragility and corruption of the B.R.I.C economic miracle; it documents the rise and fall of the left-wing – and the rise of the populist right.

The novel features the chaos and score-settling of the PCC drug gang rebellion over Mothers’ Day weekend, 2006; the murder of a British school headmaster and the consequent cover-up; a copycat serial killer; the secret international funding of nationwide anti-government protests; the bribes, kickbacks and shakedowns of the Mensalão and Lava Jato political corruption scandals.

psycho, joe thomas

A bit about your process of writing

I am a crime novelist interested in fiction based on fact, inspired by true stories of structural inequality. My fiction addresses the discourses of power and the specificity of crime, why something happened precisely where it did, and is an attempt to illuminate the reasons why. 

I tend to plan my novels loosely and read a good deal before beginning the writing. Once I have a defined structure, then I write in earnest. At this point, I will research, plan, and write at the same time. What this means is that I write one section of a novel and read around the section that follows. I find that this keeps everything fresh! 

In terms of structure, I tend to think in units of time, so do I want each chapter or section to cover a day, a week, six months, etc. As so much of what I write is based on reality, these units of time are often defined for me; I simply follow what happened and when! I find this both an anchor and liberating, too, in terms of having that tightly defined framework to exploit fictionally.

I want to be thought of as a writer pushing the form and writing political, meaningful, literary crime fiction. My goal is to build a body of work and I am very lucky to have the opportunity to do just that.

What about word count?

I have a very irritating habit: whenever I stop writing, or even pause for a moment, the word count has to end in either zero or five. I will tinker with sentences for this to be the case! In some ways it helps with editing; in others it is likely counter-productive!

What do you find hard about writing?

Having to overcome my own irritating habits! I used to think that I had to write first thing in the morning to produce anything of quality; since having a son – who is now twenty-months old – I am learning to use any part of the day I can. This is not always easy!

What do you love about writing?

I love that the days when I do it feel better than the days when I don’t.

Brazilian Psycho by Joe Thomas is out now in hardback by Arcadia.

 

My Writing Process Julie Shackman.

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I am a writer of feel-good romance and live to the North of Glasgow with my husband and two sons. I trained as a journalist and studied Communication & Media, but I always wanted to be an author. We  adopted a Romanian rescue puppy, who we named Cooper, just before Christmas and he is often my writing companion!

What you have written, past and present. 

A Secret Scottish Escape is my fifth published book. My first two novels, Rock My World and Hero or Zero, were published digitally by the London based publisher Not So Noble Books and my next novel after that, A Room at the Manor, was released by Allen & Unwin. Book number four, The McKerron Castle, was released in audio by Bolinda.

Years ago, I also had two children’s picture books published in Dublin, but I always wanted to write feel-good, escapist romance and that is the genre I love to read.

What you are promoting now. 

I am promoting my latest feel-good romance, A Secret Scottish Escape, which is being released by the wonderful HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter as an ebook on 21 May and in paperback on 19 August. I can’t wait to share the tale of Layla and Rafe!

A bit about your process of writing. 

I find it very difficult to write straight onto the PC, so I tend to write long-hand in one of my many notebooks (!) and then type it up. I usually go to my favourite tea shop to write, but since lockdown, that hasn’t been possible, so I have been learning to write on the sofa, in the kitchen and whilst staring out of the window in the office! I also have to have music playing. Listening to lyrics seems to work for me as well.

Do you plan or just write?

I used to be a real panster, but have got a little bit better since  my last couple of books. I haven’t been planning everything, but write more detailed notes now on character background, settings and where the story is headed.

What about word count?

I just tend to write the first draft, get it all down and then tweak polish and edit after that. if I can write about 1k-1,500 words a day, I’m pleased with that. The most I have ever written in a day was 4,500 words. I wouldn’t like to do that too often!

How do you do your structure?

I make lots of bullet points in my notebook, referring back to themes and characters. It can look rather chaotic, but it seems to turn out ok in the end!

What do you find hard about writing?

I procrastinate alot! I also have a habit of browsing through social media or reading the paper and then have to have a stiff word with myself.

What do you love about writing? 

I love creating worlds and characters that readers can hopefully lose themselves in. I think we all really need to be able to do that – especially now!

Advice for other writers. 

Don’t ever give up. Keep going, keep writing and keep reading. A published writer is an unpublished writer who never quit.

UK Amazon Link –

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Scottish-Escape-heartwarming-women-ebook/dp/B08T5WWNDR/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

US –

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Scottish-Escape-Julie-Shackman-ebook/dp/B08T5WWNDR/

 

My Writing Process Kat Dunn

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  • What you have written, past and present

DANGEROUS REMEDY was my debut novel, published in 2020. MONSTROUS DESIGN is the second in the series, out June 2021, and I’m in the midst of writing the third and final book in the series, 

Before my debut I wrote a whole host of finished, part-written and completely abandoned novels, none of which I let myself take seriously.

  • What you are promoting now

MONSTROUS DESIGN is the sequel to DANGEROUS REMEDY, and comes out 10 June 2021. The first book in the series saw Camille, her girlfriend Ada, and their band of outcasts rescue a girl with strange powers from the guillotine in revolutionary Paris. In the second book, the gang is split between London and Paris struggling against Royalist forces that are growing ever stronger. Think duels, necromancy, betrayal, and a cast of queer, found family misfits.

  • A bit about your process of writing

I work a 9-5 day job, so I write evenings, weekends, lunch breaks and early mornings. It’s not always been easy to find the time to write, and I’ve had to put aside other aspects of my life to make it work. But I’ve been writing since I was a small child, and there’s nothing else I’ve ever wanted to do with my life.

I usually have anything from 5-10 ideas fermenting in my head at once, but I try to focus on 1-2 projects at a time. I’ll usually write a draft in 3-4 months, go back straight away and fix all the bits I know are wrong, then chunk it over to someone else (whether my editor, agent, or a friend) to get some more direction for the next round of edits. 

  • Do you plan or just write?

I used to think I was a planner, but the more real planners I meet the more I realise I’m somewhere between planner and pantser.  

It feels like someone’s dumped out a jigsaw puzzle into my brain, and I have some pieces that are obviously corners or edges, or here are a whole heap that connect together to make a building or cloud or something, and then there’s the mess of unknown pieces. So I’ll try to write the bits I know out in a very sketch note form. I like scrivener for this, because I can make a document for each puzzle piece and then start grouping them and moving them around, while making notes of all the things I think should happen in that scene. 

Then writing it is like putting the puzzle together. Sometimes it zooms along, sometimes you realise what you thought was a cloud was actually snow and it’s in the wrong place and you have to pull things apart…. You get the idea. 

  • What about word count?

Apart from a few outliers, I end up somewhere between 80-110k for most drafts. Things grow and shrink during edits, but I don’t have an over or under writing problem. I write the right number of words, they’re just the wrong words and have to go in the bin.

  • How do you do your structure?

I really love books about story structure. I don’t think there are really any hard and fast rules (and a lot of those rules are western-centric and automatically dismiss other forms of storytelling). But I like knowing what sort of patterns are out there, and pulling them apart. 

DANGEROUS REMEDY and MONSTROUS DESIGN are fast paced stories that take place over a handful of days each. I didn’t get to play around with structure too much, but I did use the structure to think a lot about what information I share with the reader and what I withhold until the right moment. I love a good twist and to make them work you’ve got to do a lot of work before you can whip back the curtain and reveal the truth. Having a clear idea of my structure helps me work out where I need to lay seeds. 

  • What do you find hard about writing?

I’ve found it tricky know how to structure stories that are driven by emotions and character over big flashy plots. I’ve been working on a side project where this has been my main challenge and I’ve learnt so much. It’s made me think about my writing in a really different way and prove to myself that even though I’m a published author now, there’s still so much more to do and learn.

I find editing harder than drafting. It stops being potential and starts being a real thing, which will always disappoint me a bit for not being exactly the thing in my head.

  • What do you love about writing?

I had to think about this for a while. It’s like someone’s asked me what do I love about air. I like that it means I can breathe? I’ve been through a lot of difficulty in my life, and for a lot of it been on my own, so writing has been as essential as water or sunlight. It means I can exist. It gives me purpose and meaning and joy. 

If I have to say something specific, I think my greatest joy is when character drives plot and plot drives character in a really effective way – a slow burn character arc that takes a hero to a villain. I love writing in moral grey areas, where good people do terrible things and terrible people do good things.