So, my pre-writing process looks roughly like the following.
Step 1: I gather up a bunch of loose notes about small stuff – ‘Character falls alseep on a bus’, say.
Step 2: I turn those loose gathered notes into a rough outline, which will generally have a ton of notes attached, formatted as if I was trying to tell someone the plot of a movie in a conversation.
Step 3: I turn that into a scene by scene outline.
Step 4: I turn that into an outline I can actually write from (which is usually just formatting, but may include extra notes or more granular scene breakdowns).
And then I write.
And I thought I’d finished all of this, as I’ve mentioned, and I got halfway through writing the book only to realize it wasn’t going how I wanted. So I went back to step 4, and that didn’t work, and I went to step 3, then 2, and it turns out that this job isn’t just repainting the walls, it’s ripping out the carpets so I can go all the way back to step 1.
On the bright side, I now have like 90 000 words of loose notes to work with.
We might say that I am in a situation of combined delight and dismay, horror and hope.
Because while, y’know, this process is both dispiriting and super boring – because I am redoing a lot of stuff I thought I was done with, so none of it feels like I’m making progress – I am also delighted on the regular as I rediscover my original passion for writing this book and the characters in it.
I am, rather than feeling dispirited and like this thing is getting away from me, feeling considerable hope that things will work out and I will get a beautiful book out into the world.
We’ll see how it works out.
In other, more exciting news – someone profiled my books as part of a larger youtube essay on Furry Literature. (See https://youtu.be/AQEMHkyxzCI – which you may have already seen if you follow my social media).
Why is this exciting? This resulted in the sale of something like thirty of my books last month. I have had YEARS where I’ve only sold about thirty books. (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, to be precise. I know, I know – I look like I’m much more successful than that, but, that is the case for most authors out there.)
So, thank you to Cardinal West and to everyone checking out my work – as I often say, I really appreciate having the opportunity to entertain you.
And I appreciate all your support, as always, whether you’re a Patreon patron or someone just taking enough interest in my work to read this! It all helps and keeps me writing.
Or, er. Digging back to the roots of my work and recomposing it to make it better.
Hope your upcoming month treats you well!
