Paperback Writer

Thank you to the very funny Jim at Gingerfightback, who was not only kind enough to read the first draft of my children’s novel and give me some great feedback, but has now invited me to take part in The Writing Process Blog Tour.  The tour asks writers to answer a few questions about their work.  I don’t normally get involved with all the blog events that do the rounds (I shudder at the word meme) but I’ve been suffering with a bad case of Blog Bleh recently and have been a bit slack on the blogging front so I thought this would be the kick up the backside I needed.

• What am I working on at the moment?

Flitting around quite a lot, instead of just concentrating on getting one thing finished…I’ve been:

1) Revising my children’s Time Travel novel

2) Writing a short story about a writer whose wife goes missing and he’s the main suspect

3) Writing a comedy diary about a character who keeps getting involved in robberies and murders – the lovechild of Miss Marple and Adrian Mole

4) Waiting to upload a blog post about the Italian Lakes as I can’t access my photos from the external data storage that HWW (aka The Geek) has installed

5) Reading crap on the internet

True dat…

 Note to self: JUST BLOODY FINISH SOMETHING

• How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Who knows?  Does it differ?  Should it differ??  If I’m reading a thriller, I kinda like to know what I’m getting.

• Why do I write what I do?

I guess I like to read fast-paced, fairly light novels so that’s what I aim to write.  I tend to skip description when I’m reading (apologies to all those authors who poured their heart and soul into building beautiful images with their words…I just don’t read ’em) so I don’t go overboard on the description in my writing.   I like good ol’ double-entendres so I always like to squeeze one in if I possibly can.

• How does my writing process work?

If you know me, it might not surprise you to hear that I can be a tiny bit disorganised…

I plan best on paper with drawings and mind maps so I’ve got hundreds of bits of paper and notebooks full of ideas and notes.   Then there’s lots of random stuff on my computer – including some stories that I lost for about a year.   I tried writing my novel saving each chapter as a separate file but kept getting muddled with which version of which chapter I was on so I put the whole thing into one huge file.  Then I email myself regular copies in case of computer failure.

Note to self: BE MORE BLOODY ORGANISED

I find it difficult to write if I’m hungry, tired or stressed – which in Italy is quite a lot of the time.  There’s also the fear of failure to overcome which is really at the heart of most writer’s block and procrastination.  As Stephen King says, ‘The scariest moment is always just before you start.’

And now I nominate a couple of writers, whose blogs I always enjoy and are really worth checking out, to participate in the tour:

Claire @ The Grass is Dancing 

Jackie @ Jacqueline Cango

Samantha @ FarmerFarthing

MM @ Multifarious Meanderings

If you accept my nomination, please use the questions below to prompt a post and nominate a couple of bloggers to continue the tour.  No worries if you don’t want to do it, I totally understand!

What am I working on at the moment?
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Why do I write what I do?
How does my writing process work?