#Writing while bathing, exercising...driving via @LiviaQuinn

The writing process is such a fluid thing in my world. It has to be. I remember when I began writing, the summer of Katrina. I was laid off in the Spring and for the first time in my life found myself with six months of unemployment and time to write. It took a couple months to get over the feelings of rejection and unjust treatment, then I was struck by the freedom of the next few months decided to see if I could bring the stories that had been spinning in my head to life

So, I purchased six composition notebooks, pulled up my lounge chair, got some smooth writing pens and my Storm Lake series was born. Three months later the world turned upside down. Luckily, we were far enough out of the path  of Katrina that we didn't suffer any damage from the storm but statewide, businesses sagged and unemployment soared, not to mention people pouring out of the damaged areas into northern parishes. I had to go to work.

I found a job in DC working for the Small Business Administration Disaster Assistance program on a Friday and left the next day, arriving at my aunt's house so I could go to work in Virginia on Monday. I still can't believe how fast it all happened, or how fast I was back in those eighty hour weeks. The writing was nearly forgotten until my time in DC and Atlanta ended six months later. Once again, I found myself on the bayou, lounging and writing. It became apparent that if I was going to get serious about this new endeavor I needed to educate myself about the writing craft.

I joined the RWA around the time I started delivering the mail and as I drove around my route, I listened to workshops from the CDs I purchased. (The RWA has since clamped down on this which I think is a shame since it enabled newbie writers in rural areas where there were no chapters to learn from other authors and experts in our field.)

So while I was driving the route, the characters began to visit. Driving is a very creative activity for me, but since I was working, using both feet and both hands, I learned to record my ideas into my tiny recorder to be transcribed on my days off.

During my days as a sales person earlier in my career I purchased an Autodesk. The thing is indestructible and I've used it for thirty years. But it's really come in handy for my writing. When I'm on long trips or commuting to work I plop my legal pad on it and channel the characters. They love it when I'm driving-- or bathing. So I take advantage of it. Sometimes it's all over the page because naturally, driving has to take priority ;)

 

Last December I made a commitment to my health. I'd kept telling myself when I make enough I'm going to get a treaddesk but the Surf Desk I purchased in December essentially turned my treadmill into one. The first time I got on it and secured my laptop, I walked twice as far as ever before. Then the treadmill crapped out, but within three days I was back to it. 

Now, that my little seasonal restaurant is about to open, the process has to change again if I'm going to get Take these Broken Wings, Destiny 5 written. It will be a combination of treadmill, morning soaks, and drive time. This should add up to about an hour and a half to write forward on the manuscript. It also means I have to handwrite in multiple notebooks, depending on where I am. So over the weekend, I read in 31,000 words with Mac OS dictation.

As I said, fluid. A writer must adapt to what's happening in her life, unless she's lucky enough to have income in the household that supports a full time writing career. I'm thrilled that I'm writing every day, and though the first half of the year doesn't usually translate into multiple books, at least it's progress.

Livia

#Release Day! Blame it on the Moon #asmsg

It's such a great feeling to be able to announce the release of Blame it on the Moon, book 4 in my Storm Lake: Destiny Paramortals series. I'd begun to wonder if it was ever going to happen.

There I was in December, pleased with the six books I'd been able to publish in the last half of 2014 and illogically expecting things would continue in a similar fashion in 2015. My work plan included publishing a book in February, April and June. (I laugh now at my expectations.) I had the plan formed, how many words I needed to write per day, when I would revise, when the covers needed to be finished to accomplish that schedule. (This is where you hear that buzzer sound the game shows play when a contestant gives the wrong answer.) Unnnh! Wrong.

Reality set in when I realized the additional job I took on in January and February was going to mean fewer hours to write due to six or seven day workweeks, long hours and a long commute, a very uncreative atmosphere, and then it would bleed into my seasonal business which is a seven day a week commitment. This meant my writing process which had become so wonderfully habitual was going to come to a halt. And not just for a short time-- for seven months.

Having worked eighty hour weeks or two jobs most of my life, I'd come to treasure those six off months to give to my stories, especially since all of a sudden my characters seemed to be speaking to me constantly--no, I've never had a problem with schizophrenia ;) so it's satisfying that I was able to persevere and devise a plan to keep going even though it wasn't at the pace I'd hoped.

I felt I owed my readers this book more than the others, which gets Tempe and Jack to a place they've been headed to since Storm Crazy. So I postponed Dance of Desire, the prequel to Blood Opal, put the revisions on Storm Warning on hold, and devoted what little daily time I could to finishing Blame it on the Moon.

I discovered something wonderful in the process. Armed with my mini notebook and my favorite navy blue Sarasa pen for thirty minutes in the tub every morning , and another twenty on my long commute over country roads, I could get a good forty minutes worth of writing done. This amounted to around 600-1500 words per day, and that's how Blame it on the Moon got written. In the tub and on the road.

Unfortunately, revising isn't possible in the tub, or while driving, so that took much longer, nearly two months. At the start of that revision process, I wondered if it would ever be a book I'd like. That's the thing about revising. Some people say you should just write the book and spend very little time revising it but for me, it's a necessary evil that transforms the rough jumbled boring mess into a cohesive piece of work that I'm not ashamed to offer to anyone.

I hope you enjoy Blame it on the Moon and all the other Storm Lake books. If you're new to the series, you might want to check out the Storm Lake pages to see the difference in the communities. Destiny is where the supernatural creatures live. The farther east you go, the more 'normal' people are. Though if you were to ask Jack, he'd be the first to say, "What's so great about 'normal'?"

Here's the blurb: 
It’s the height of the Para-moon and Sheriff Jack Lang is up to his ‘6’ in alligators. Defending those weaker than himself is in his DNA which is what drove him to become a Navy pilot and a detective in Memphis. But who is he kidding? Alligators he could handle! Supernatural bad guys, well…

Ragtag doesn’t begin to describe his band of temporary ’heroes’. If he had to go to war with the supernatural with the group that showed up at dawn, he might as well start cutting up white sheets and attaching them to garden stakes.

With Tempe and the other Paramortals ill or incapacitated and the sudden appearance of beings he’s never heard of, will Jack be able to keep Destiny out of the hands of their enemies for the rest of the power down? After all, it’s only twenty-four hours. If he could find some real soldiers and get a strong defense together until the Paramortals get most of their power back, maybe they’d stand a chance.

He’s been told this was the strongest and most unpredictable Chaos ever, which is why Tempe, Aurora and Dylan have been hit so hard, but also, ironically, the reason there’d been no coordinated attack by hordes of bad guys  - yet.

He doesn’t have time to worry about the future he may not have with Tempe and his daughter because one crisis after another raises its head. They have to find a healer for Dylan, relocate a lost elemental, make a formal request for help from the Fae, figure out what the hell his crazy ex Georgeanne is up to, and - very important - keep the humans in the dark.

If worse comes to worse, he has a dragon on his side and a few surprises up his sleeve. “Yippe, ki, yi! Unfortunately a lot can happen in twenty four hours and things… don’t always go as planned.

L is for Learning #A2Zchallenge blog

 

Anyone who's done any creative writing can tell you if you do it long enough, your process changes. Or maybe it adapts to your new knowledge of yourself, the introspection and acceptance of your own particular way of thinking and creating.

There are plotters, pantsers, plantsers or plotsers, or mini-versions in between. 

When I started writing, I grabbed a composition notebook, opened it and began. No pressure, just telling a story. Then I started studying the craft of writing, listening to traditional publishing workshops, learning the rules. And following them. And until I decided to Self-publish, my process suffered. I thought to "do it correctly" I had to plot my stories first. And so began the struggle.

But last year during another challenge - Nano - which I've done every year since 2008, I discovered my true process is to sit down and let the characters tell their story. It's terrifying. And it's bliss when I make myself sit there and write, whether it's in the tub on a small notebook, on a legal pad going down the road, on my MacAir or on an ipad. Just write. 

Have you had an epiphany like this? Maybe you're a plotter who's tried to go by the seat of your pants. Writing is an individual as, well... each individual. But writers write