My Writing Process

My desk with the must have cup of tea!

When I began writing this post, I wasn’t entirely sure that I had a writing process at all or what it even really meant. But when I sat down and thought about it and my fingers began to tap the keyboard, I realised that I do, even if it can seem a little chaotic at times. Perhaps not the best way to work, but at the moment, in my writing journey, it is the only way I know how to.

Writing for me is like a complex puzzle that I need to solve. Parts of the story come to me in little snippets, whether it be when I am out for a walk, sitting in the park, on a journey somewhere, or listening to music.  Of course, all these snippets come to me out of sequence, so I have the tricky task of expanding upon them and piecing them together at a later date.

Sometimes the snippets of scenes that float into my mind like whispered secrets, can begin to take form from a few written lines inspired by a song, compelling me to follow them and see where they go. These can be written in my notebook, or else scribbled on post-it notes that I pin to my noticeboard to use another day. Other days and on occasion, a scene forms so vividly in my mind that it demands to be written down immediately. It can be pages sparked by a single idea. Usually, my first attempt at writing down these scenes, whether in a notebook or on my laptop, comes out terribly, sometimes not even making any sense. I don’t think I have ever written anything down that has been perfect first time. If I'm on a flow, which doesn't happen often, my brain can work faster than my hands, imagining the scene like a film, while my fingers stumble over the keyboard trying desperately to keep up. The worst is when I have too much to write down at once and I forget what I was going to write. That can be incredibly frustrating. I haven’t yet meticulously planned a story from beginning to end, which I’m sure most other writers would do so well. Where these random ideas come to me at random times, I even have ideas for books three, four and maybe even five…and possibly a prequal (I’m not sure yet if I will wrap up The Mirror’s Reflection series in four or five books).

At some point when there are enough scenes and snippets of scenes, it’s as if the story has already begun to take form and come alive without me even realising it happened. That’s when I tend to read through everything to see what I have and where the story is going and what needs adding and moving around. It can be a difficult task piecing them all together like a jigsaw puzzle and then filling in the gaps, like weaving a piece of thread through a blanket to link the story together.

When I'm stuck or get the unfortunate but inevitable writers block, I either move onto another piece of the story, or I might start reading through what I have of the book so far and do some early editing. Usually as I read through, I think of more things to write, better ways to reword something and other ways to link pieces together. I have often listened to music that fits the scene, closed my eyes, and thought about the scene I am stuck on and attempted to try and find out what happens next.

As I’m sure many writers do, I love stationary. I love coloured pens. Cute drawing pins. Pretty colour paper clips. Gothic stickers. Beautiful notebooks (I’m currently using one either Kimberley or Mum brought me for Christmas – they both brought me the same one, which is fantastic because I have two of them to fill now, and it is beautiful, with a hard pink cover embossed with the letter E and gold edges to the paper. And post-it notes! How could I forget those? Can a writer have too many post-it notes? I think the answer is no. Although at one point I did have so many, I feared I would never use them all, so I took some into work for the team and I to use.

Back to the notebooks, I sometimes write new ideas in my notebook and type up later, which usually happens if I am out and about. I like to always have a notebook or some paper with me, that way if an idea pings into my head without warning, which does happen, I have something to scribble it down on. If I have fallen short and an idea strikes me at an unexpected time and I don’t have any paper with me, I’ll use my notes app on my phone and then email it to myself. Even at work an idea may strike me. Whilst backstage, the lights are off, the costumes are set and ready to go, all the pre show dressing is done and everyone is in their costumes ready to go, and my notebook is illuminated by torch light. There are often a few spare minutes before the curtains open and the show begins, so, instead of sitting there doing nothing in those odd two, three minutes, I will sometimes jot ideas into my repairs book in my dressing apron.  This particular notebook could look something like this:

*name* hole in side seam of finale costume 

*name* needs new tights for Panto

*name* petticoat ripped

They had only walked a few paces, when Stephanie heard someone call her name. She turned around, scanning the grounds, but could not see anyone…

And then the show begins, and I dash off to my first dressing cue and finish the sentence another day.

Other times, if I am at my desk at home, I will type new ideas. I never learned to type ‘properly’ when I was at school. Before writing a book, I was the sort of person who was incredibly slow on a keyboard, typing with one or two fingers, but on my journey to become a writer, I have learnt to type so much faster. Even to the point if a brilliant idea strikes me, my fingers are flying across the keyboard. On occasion if I have a particularly long piece of writing to type up, I have tried the “dictate” button on word where I speak my work and it types it up. This tool is ok, but I find it quite annoying having to say “new line” or “full stop” and it doesn’t seem to do speech marks, so it’s not great for dialogue scenes.

Draft of manuscript

When the editing process is well underway and near to looking finished, one tool I like to use for a read through is the Read Aloud tool on Microsoft Word. Or “computer lady” as I call her, to read out my work. I find this really useful in being able to hear my words spoken aloud. It helps me to hear if it makes sense, hear typos or where I may have written the wrong word. (I so wish I had known about this when I first published book one back in 2019 – but at least I know about it now for future books). And best of all, its like my book is an audio book (even if her tone of voice is a little monotone). Another thing “computer lady” is great for is when I am doing read throughs of earlier drafts where I am not quite ready to print a copy and I want to save paper and my eyes from staring at the computer screen for too long.

In the end, I literally lose count of how many times I read through the book from start to finish when I’m editing it before I can suck in that huge gulp of air for confidence and say it’s ready for publishing.  

For now, that is a rough idea of what my writing process is like, a little messy, a little all over the place, but I think it’s safe to say that it (hopefully) all comes together in the end as long as I keep going and believe it will.