Writing Process

As I write this, the sun is shining outside, but that wasn't the case earlier this week. Around the middle of this past week, there was this freaky thing with the weather where it was raining and snowing at the same time. I cried when I saw it. That night, there was also this winter storm with thunder.

Anyway, onto better things. I've got just one page left in my book to hand-write! (Maybe two, depends on how big my letters are going to be and how detailed I want the last scene to be.) So, I'm confident I'll be done with my first draft today! Since I promised I'd talk about my writing process once I finished my first draft, that's what this post will be about.

The first thing that I do when I write (after getting an idea) is create an outline. That's actually a recent addition to my writing process. Before, I would just start from the beginning and write until I got to the end. For my first book, I started with just writing the book, but then got writer's block. So, I created an outline and it helped. For this second book, I created an outline first and then started writing the book. Although I've strayed a bit from the outline and had to edit a few things on it, it helped me keep on track and keep out of the multiple writer's blocks I've had in the past.

After the outline comes the first draft. I hand-write the first draft. It's a habit I picked up from writing when I was bored in school and didn't have a laptop to type on. I number the pages to keep them in order. When I'm done with a page, I add it to a binder where I keep everything relating to that book. The binder for this second book has been opened so many times that the cover is falling off. Once I'm done with the book and move on to the next one, the binder is put away, storing the first draft with it. I still have the binder from my first book and my unpublished book from before that.

Once the first draft is complete, I type it up. While typing, I make my first edits: fixing mistakes, expanding some sections, deleting scenes that don't make sense or don't fit, adding in scenes that make the story flow better. Each chapter gets its own document. I then combine the chapters in one document and read through it one more time.

When I'm happy with it, I send the full story to my dad. He then prints it off and gives it to my mom. She loves reading and can easily catch most grammatical and spelling errors. Once she makes her edits, I fix them and send it to my dad again. He then reads it over and makes edits of his own. My dad has always been creative so he's able to give me suggestions to make the story itself better.

After I go over the suggestions and add in the ones I feel would improve the story, I read it over at least one more time. Then, I make structural edits to the document to make it able to be uploaded for publication and distribution. During this structural process, I work on the cover. Once all of that is done, I upload it to Smashwords and Amazon. Smashwords then distributes it to multiple ebook sellers. That finishes the process and I start on the next one. (Before, I started on the this upcoming one while still getting the first one ready for publication. That's probably what I'll do with the next one.)

So, that's my writing process. Once again, I've made a long post. I'll be starting the typing portion of my process today. Hopefully, this will move faster than the actual writing. Anyway, until next time, have a great week!