I almost never play along for blog tags and blog hops. Really. I even shunned my poor sister's award tag. But this one seemed easy enough to do, so I'll give it a go.
I was tagged by a sweet, online writing friend,
Catherine Johnson, who has published two poetry books,
Weirdo Zoo and
The Everglades.
The theme is "my writing process," which I've never really thought too much about. I suppose I worry that it'd be like the joke with the centipede. The centipede was ambling along, minding its own business. A butterfly asked him, "how on earth do you manage to walk properly with all those feet?" The centipede thought about this question...and was never able to walk again.
I'm afraid that if I over-analyzed my writing process, I'll never be able to write again. Joking! Well, only sort of.
But anyway, here we go.
1. What am I working on?
Right now, I'm working on about 10 different picture book drafts in varying stages of revision and completion, going through some final edits on a middle-grade SF novel, and starting a YA steampunk novel that I'm rather excited about.
I'm also working on a number of adult science fiction stories to be included in
The Minnows Literary Group's next few anthologies. 100% of the proceeds from these anthologies are donated to Doctors Without Borders. The first volume was
Out of Time, and the second volume was
In a Land Far Away.
Upcoming volumes will be
Centauri Station (stories about space travel), and another one on time travel again, due to popular request.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Aside from having a voice that is uniquely my own, as every writer does, I tend to weave science facts into my work. In the adult pieces that I write, I sometimes make people work a little bit to "get" the story. For example, in
In a Land Far Away, some of the things I mention in "Three Long Pigs" will make the story much richer if you looked them up.
I try not to write stories that are considered beach books. I may never attain Danielle Steele status with this philosophy, but I'm proud of my writing that involve a lot of research.
3. Why do I write what I do?
I write children's literature because I never stopped reading children's books even after growing out of childhood. A lot of what I read, whether children or adult books, tend to be science fiction or fantasy (I include fairy tales and folklore in this category) and science/nonfiction. So it's only natural that I should gravitate to those categories and genres when I write stories.
4. How does my writing process work?
Um, does it seem like it's working? If it were working, I'd have the fame and productivity of Stephen King. ;)
I try to write, on and off, a couple of hours a day, and revise for a couple more. I get interrupted a lot by household chores and homeschooling stuff. Inspired by my amazing science fiction critique group buddy,
Russell James, I was getting up an hour or two earlier than my family last year so I could have quiet time to write, but when it got really cold in the winter, I stopped doing that because I can't type when my fingers are freezing (we keep the house pretty cold at night). Now that it's warming up again, I will have to get back on that schedule.
Thanks again, Catherine, and I hope I haven't bored you all to tears too much.
Per usual, I don't tag people, but if you feel like playing along, please let me know and I'll come read your post!
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams
