My Creative Process

My sister from another mother, L. Penelope, asked me to come on board a blog hop about the creative process. So here's my whirl!

What am I working on?

I'm currently revising a contemporary romance, fairytale reinterpretation alongside drafting a paranormal shifter romance. I often get trapped in the first twenty pages of revision playing with words and phrases. My solution to this is to limit the amount of pages I'm allowed to revise each week and then move on to writing something new, even if its just writing exercises. I've heard many professionals poo-poo this path noting that drafting and revising exist on two different sides of your brain that should not be engaged at the same time. But I prefer to listen to fitness experts who say that you have to exercise both sides of your body to become stronger.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

In the planned series of fairytale reinterpretations the heroines are all mothers. Statistics show that single mother households make up 25% of today's families. Romance novels are a form of escapism and all mothers need escape from their lives at some point during the day. More importantly they need heroines who look like, smell like, think like and have the same issues as them. The first in this Cindermama series is based on the story of Cinderella. My heroine, whose nickname is Pumpkin, fell for a 'toad.' Years later, when the actual 'prince' comes around, she no longer believes in happily-ever-afters. I hope it'll be out next year.

Why do I write/create what I do? 

I can't not tell stories. If you ask me how my day went be prepared for a diatribe. When you tell me how your day went, rest assured that I'm crafting an adventure plot around your completed To Do List and trying to figure out where to insert the hook! My brain doesn't stop telling stories. I'm finally breaking down and appeasing it by writing the stories down and sharing them with others.

http://markandpaddy.com/The-Brain-Dump

How does my creative process work?

I write like a homemaker. I make an absolute mess on the page. I call this the "dump" stage. I usually do timed sprints of an outlined scene, not stopping until I reach the end of the scene or the end of the time period.

Then I clean up the mess. I'm training myself to just clean the story at this point and not the words. I love a thesauruses and will spend all day picking around connotations to find the best word for my meaning.

Once the draft is clean, I go back and give it a scrub. Here's where I allow myself to look at word choice. The scrub is followed by a good polish where I check my grammar and spelling -or have someone else do it.

Be sure to check out my other sister from another mother, Angela D'Ambrosio and look into how she creates her stories.