Tag — You’re it! Blog Hop: How I Write

I’m it! I’ve been tagged in the “How I Write” blog hop so here goes!

I was tagged by M.L. LeGette, author of several Fantasy books for kids, including The Orphan and the Thief and the TheTale of Mally Biddle. I met M.L. last year when she hosted me at her blog via her “Be My Guest” feature, where she interviews fellow Indie authors. Her blogs are always so fun and creative. And… I also love following her on Pinterest!  She has some of the most amazing images on her boards.  Follow her here to see what I mean.

Okay, onto my writing process.

What am I working on?

Two things: after getting some feedback from my First Reader, I’m finishing up what turned out to be a near total rewrite for Every Breath You Take.  I think I needed her to tell me how off base it was (even though, deep down, I knew.  You always know.) before I put on my surgical scrubs and took a scalpel to it. I’m finally falling in love with it, which is a wonderful feeling.

Work on my other book, Live to Tell is going much better. It’s in beta reading at the moment and so far comments haven’t been horrible, so I’m hopeful J.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

What a great question.  Well, I write suspense novels about the dark side of love, so I like to think if a Lifetime movie and the Investigation Discovery channel had a baby, my books would be the resulting bouncing bundle of joy. 

In terms of how my books may differ from others in my genre, I don’t feature detectives or serial killers – my books are more about how love gone wrong can drive people to murderous extremes.

Why do I write what I write?

I’ve always loved reading mystery and suspense books because I like the puzzle aspect of those types of stories.  I love trying to figure out whodunit, why they done it, etc., so I was just naturally drawn towards telling those types of stories.

And probably because I watch too much Investigation Discovery. ;)

How does my writing process work?

It usually starts with my characters talking to me (no, really). Other times, a first line will pop into my head out of nowhere.  And of course there are those times when I have no idea how I came up with the idea, but I run with it.

I’ve always done plot points scribbled in random notebooks and more recently, I’ve started doing more narrative outlines. Even with an outline, I don’t let that stop me from taking a different exit off the expressway. It’s all very intuitive with me; if what I initially thought would work doesn’t, I feel my way around until I get it right (see Every Breath You Take example above).

And now, I turn it over to some of my fellow writers.

Katie Oliver

I met Katie through the #MondayBlogs meme on Twitter, where I became a great admirer of her witty and spot-on blogs.  I later discovered that like me, she was a General Hospital fan and it wasn’t long before we were gabbing about that all day.  Katie writes comedy with a bit of romance and kicked off her Dating Mr. Darcy series earlier this year with Prada and Prejudice.

Nancy Wood

I first became aware of Nancy because her book, Due Date, is always in the “Also Boughts” on Amazon for my book, Sweet Little Lies.  Then, when I decided to host the “Tales from the Dark Side…of Love” giveaway this past February, Nancy was one of the first suspense authors I reached out to. Not only did she jump in with both feet (check out her awesome post on Dark TV Shows We Love to Love), she pointed me to tons of other suspense authors that she thought might want to participate.

Awesome.

Thanks again to M.L. LeGette for tagging me.  This was fun! J