Welcome to a special edition of my blog this week. Author
Kanchana Ayyar has invited me to be part of
The Writing Process Blog Tour, in which selected
authors answer four questions on their blog. Think of it is how a writer might
imagine a Passover Seder… sans the matzoh. “Why is this night different from
all other nights?” So begin the traditional Four Questions asked at Passover
Seders for thousands of years. In a similar vein, today you might ask “Why is
this blog different from all of my other blogs?” because I’ll be answering the same four questions being
put to many writers today as part of a new tradition – the Writing Process Blog
Tour.
Question #1: What are you working on?
These days, writers wear several hats. When I’m wearing my promoter
hat, I’m promoting my most recently published books, The Witches Cauldron and
Collected Essays of a Reluctant Blogger. But when I put on my production hat, I’m designing the forthcoming deluxe
illustrated collection of my four-book fantasy series, The Halos and Horns Omnibus Edition. This is probably the most exciting project
I've ever worked on. This massive 900-page book has more than 60 color
illustrations, a guide to the Halos and Horns multiverse, the novelette The Pandora Chronicles, and several never before published essays.
It’s truly a labor of love and if you buy only one book of mine, this should be
it.
Then, when I put on
my editor’s hat, I’m doing the final run through on my young adult science
fiction novel, The 25th
Hour, which will be released later
this year. It’s a fast-paced action-adventure tale. Mackenzie Mortimer’s a
typical junior high geek. He’s shy, awkward, a bit clumsy, late with his
homework, and always late for class. There’s never enough time to do everything
he needs to do; after all, there are only 24 hours in a day. But when Mac finds
his grandfather’s pocket watch buried deep inside a trunk, he discovers his
days have an extra hour. According to the eccentric inventor’s journal, the
watch can add up to 60 minutes to a single day by freezing time around whomever
presses its button. When a crisis looms for Mac and his friends, time is
running out... but fortunately, Mackenzie Mortimer has few more minutes than
anyone else.
Next, I wear my
geek hat and meet with Amber Book Company’s programmer to develop a digitized
version of my Issues in Internet
Law: Society Technology and the Law
for colleges and universities worldwide on one of the world’s leading digital
textbook platforms. I look forward to being able to announce the details in an
upcoming blog post.
I also don my
researcher’s hat and ferret out the latest legal and technological issues to
include in the next print edition of
Issues in Internet Law: Society Technology and the Law.
Finally, I get to put on my writer’s hat, dip my quill into
the inkwell, and write a few more chapters in the first volume of Fangs and
Fur, which provides readers with an in-depth look at the vampires and
werewolves they've met in the Halos & Horns saga. Fangs and Fur:
Flashbacks (Book 1 in the series) should be published by Christmas. You can expect to hear me talk
more about Fangs and Fur as we get closer to publication date.
Question #2: How does your work differ from others of its
genre?
I write both nonfiction and fiction. In my nonfiction,
unlike many writers, I take complex topics and express them in easily
understood terms. One university professor shared his student’s comment about
my book, Issues in Internet Law: Society
Technology and the Law, with me: “I
just wanted to say I was dreading the fact I had to read a law book and
wouldn’t be able to understand the law talk but I love this book! It’s really
easy to understand and great because the Internet is a huge part of my everyday
life.” That’s what makes my nonfiction books different. My writing style is
designed to convey understanding of the underlying material, not to impress
students with how smart the author presumably is.
I also write short stories and sagas. My short stories tend
to be concise, insightful, and visceral. I think I bring a more literary writing
style to the fantasy genre. My writing has a certain elegance atypical of most
tales of vampires and demons. There’s a philosophical aspect to my writing and
I explore many literary themes, including the nature of good and evil, free
will versus predetermination, man’s inhumanity to man, universal versus moral
relativism, nature versus nurture, loss of innocence, coming of age, death,
love and friendship, the quest for power, individualism, sacrifice, and faith
versus doubt. Also, I respect my readers’ intelligence and I don’t write down
to them on a fifth grade reading level. When you read my fiction, you’ll come
away having added a few new words to your vocabulary.
Question #3: Why do you write what you do?
Besides having to pay the bills, I truly enjoy writing.
Often, I find there a lot of things that need to be said and I’ll wrap these social messages in the context of a fictional story.
Question #4: How does your writing process work?
I was trained as a traditional journalist, so I learned to
compose my thoughts before my fingers touch the keyboard and write whatever it
is I’m writing in one draft. If I’m writing a short piece, I’ll just do it as
stream of consciousness, flowing from my mind onto the screen. However, if I’m
writing a multi-book saga, or even a novel, I’ll prepare a general one-page
outline of the proposed chapters. Then, I’ll flesh out the outline by creating
a separate outline for each individual chapter. These sub outlines will contain
a list of the characters appearing in that chapter, the subplots, and sometimes, snatches of dialogue. Once I start writing the chapter, I incorporate much of
the outline but I’m also free to deviate from it. When I finish a chapter, I’ll
upload it into my Kindle and proof it for errors.
Now, I must pass the author baton to the another writer who
will take you on the next leg of the Writing Process Blog Tour.
Alain Gomez lives in San Diego and has been writing
since she was sixteen. She works in the field of music but has continued to
pursue her passion for writing as an independent author. Though she generally
sticks to writing shorter stories, Alain enjoys experimenting with a variety of
genres, including science fiction and fairy tales. Her blog is at
http://bookbrouhaha.blogspot.com.
Join Alain next Monday to read her answers to the same four
questions, but until then, feel free to read some of my previous posts
available from the drop-down menu to the left and be sure to bookmark my blog.
