An author’s process is fascinating to me. Some writers stay in a perfectly synchronized flow writing the same time every day, powering through that first draft until the end before editing. Some writers edit as they go, refusing to move on to the next chapter until the current chapter is perfect. And then the rest of us fall somewhere in between using a host of ideas about creativity, I think. For me, it’s a combination of all of the above. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way.

Take my current WIP for example, I knew the ending would be a snowstorm and that something will happen on Christmas Eve before I even knew the opening scene. So I wrote the ending first because it was hot on my mind and I couldn’t work on anything else until I got that scene out of my head. Only then did I begin to think about Chapter 1. I like having character profiles completed with an understanding of how the minor characters will relate to my main characters and why.

This book is coming together so fast, but it’s a scramble in my head. Characters are jumping out of nowhere. The only way I can keep things straight is to use Scrivener.

Each folder of text is labeled as a day of the week because I know that by week’s end my main character will be trapped in a barn in the middle of a Texas Panhandle norther. I just have to get her to that barn, and make her life as miserable as possible until then. The folders are labeled accordingly: Monday, Monday noon (a lunch scene), Monday late afternoon, Tuesday morning, and so forth. The title of each section of text is a chronological order with day of the week and location and notes about the action on that day, but that’s where any order of writing ends.

If I wake up with a specific scene in my head, I write that scene. I am three scenes into the snowstorm, but have no middle to my story. Seems crazy, right? Scrivener makes it so easy. If I wrote that action for a Tuesday but decide it should be happening on a Thursday, I can move that folder up in the order. And I can look at the corkboard view to determine the basic outline of my story and what is lacking. I try not to think about how crazy this book is coming together because in my day job everything is numbers, exact, and deadlines. The creative process is so far removed from anything I’ve ever done before.

Does anyone else write in a frenzy of chaos, where the story is coming so fast in your brain your fingers can’t type fast enough? Just wondering.

Stay safe and stay sane. Have a happy, productive week!