My Writing Process Blog Tour

I’ve been invited to join the “My Writing Process” blog tour and have accepted for 17 March 2014. This tour rolls out across three new bloggers each person.

First I would like to thank Charles Ray, http://redroom.com/member/charles-a-ray for the opportunity to participate in the My Writing Process Blog Tour. Charles is a wonderful reviewer and blogger on all things related to writing.

Here are the questions I was asked.

1: What am I working on?
I have just begun my fourth Fantasy novel. It doesn’t have a title yet. This one is taking a whole new direction. The idea came to me in a dream, unusual for someone who rarely remembers her dreams. It will take place in a relatively primitive society (well, three actually, over the course of the story). There are several logistical things to work out yet, making it much more challenging than my previous trilogy, but I hope that means it will be even better. It will have a young female protagonist who has a destiny to fulfil. In the process she finds out a good deal about herself and two new cultures she encounters. My strength is in building characters and I am looking forward to the journey this one will take me on. I wish I could say more but I have learned that sometimes characters don’t behave as I think they will.
2: How does my work different from others in my genre?
That’s a tough question as Fantasy spans such a wide range. I will say that I will keep the paranormal aspects minimal. Some might classify it as ‘magic realism’ because they will mirror what many societies, both past and present, see as normal and plausible so will have no difficulty believing them. There will be no big spells or mythical, magical creatures. It is Fantasy because it takes place in a society that never existed and because there are aspects of paranormal in it.

3) Why do I write what I do?
The first reason that comes to mind is that I write what I would like to read and so hope that others will like it as well. Secondly, I like to explore cultures, mores, and beliefs unconstrained by ‘reality’. I like to ask “what if” a lot. What if gender roles were different? What if religious beliefs were different? How would these affect how people interact, how they view the world? I can ask these questions and let the characters lead me to the answers. I hope that this will lead readers to ask some questions of their own about our ‘real’ world and how our beliefs and practices affect how we act and interact. But I do this in a subtle way so that readers are not alienated or threatened.

4: How does the process work?
I am mostly a ‘pantser’, meaning write with only a very loose idea of where I want the story to go. I have a few characters in mind, a beginning, an ending, and a few key points along the way, but mostly my characters dictate how this will unfold and how they will act. I would find anything more rigid stifling. So far that has worked for me, thank goodness.

Next week, on March 31 three more great authors will be featured. They are Lynne Cantwell, J.D. Mader and Greta Burroughs, all very different from each other and all wonderful writers I recommend.

Lynne Cantwell grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan. She worked as a broadcast journalist for many years; she has written for CNN, the late lamented Mutual/NBC Radio News, and a bunch of radio and TV news outlets you have probably never heard of, including a defunct wire service called Zapnews. But she began as a fantasy writer (in the second grade), and is back at it today. She is also a contributing author at Indies Unlimited. She currently lives near Washington, DC.

JD Mader is a writer and musician who hangs his laptop in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mader began writing professionally at age fourteen as a sportswriter and columnist in San Diego. He is a graduate of the illustrious Creative Writing program at San Francisco State University. Mader is an award winning short story writer and novelist. His work has been described as “powerful and real”, “gritty”, and “rock and roll-literary”.

Greta Burroughs loves to read. No matter where she is, there is always a book close at hand. Her love of reading began at an early age and blossomed over time to include many different genres, her favorite now being fantasy.
As a preschool and elementary school teacher, Greta tried to instill the joy of reading in the children she worked with. Books were an important part of her classroom and story time was the highlight of the day.
It has been a while since Greta was in a classroom but she had lots of experience in reading to children of various ages and remembers what they enjoyed listening to. She tries to incorporate that knowledge into her work as an author and believes it makes her a better writer of children’s and young adult books.
She now resides in SC with her husband, Robert and three dogs. Greta has six books published at the present time; three children’s books in the Patchwork Dog and Calico Cat series, two MG/YA fantasy entitled Gerald and the Wee People and House on Bo-Kay Lane, and a nonfiction account of her experiences with an autoimmune blood disorder called ITP – Heartaches and Miracles.
For more information on Greta’s books visit http://booksbygretaburroughs.weebly.com/