Inside A Writer’s Messy Mind
I thought you might like to see a glimpse of my writing process.
I wrote my next manuscript, due in December, in non – chronological order. In other words, I wrote any scene whenever I damn well felt like it, no matter if I was writing the last scene of the book in the middle and the first scene at the end.
I also wrote people’s relationship scenes one right after the other. So, all of the scenes that my main character, Charlotte, has with her Scottsman, well, they were written straight down for twenty or thirty or more pages.
Because of this ridiculousness, I had to print the manuscript out, then cut it apart with scissors, label every scene, highlight the labels, staple the scenes together and put them in order in a messy pile. I then had to cut and paste the document on my computer so it would be a story instead of a literary catastrophe.
What’s that? You hear me screaming? Really? Does it sound like this, ARGGGHHHH!!!
Oh my, I do hope you don’t have a cat like mine around who would love to walk all over those papers and scatter them to the four corners of the room! If your process works, it’s worth all the ARGGHHS. A friend of mine loaned me one of your books and I enjoyed it so much I have had to binge read the rest of them. Your characters just really resonate with me, with the situations we all have, and I have loved each and every book. Thank you so much.
1Diane,
My cat likes to sit on my keyboard! Very bad. One time I came in and she had sat on my keyboard and actually printed letters into my manuscript, hit the return button, messed it up. Oh, it was a mini nightmare when I saw she was there. And she didn’t look guilty at al!!
I am so glad that my books have made you binge read. I love that phrase, “binge read.” I must do that soon.
Still working away on my next novel. What I Remember Most is out in September.
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