My Writing Process Blog Hop!

I haven’t been tagged in a blog hop in a while!  But this week I got tagged by fellow HarperImpulse author Nic Tatano, who I’m told is the only other male writer in that imprint.  (He seemed pretty pleased when Dawn and I signed over there!)  Nic has been with them about a year, and his serialized novel “It Girl” is making waves right now.  He was here on Finding Fiction Friday on May 30th, and you can read that interview here.

So I’ve been asked to talk about my writing process.  Since so far I’ve written exclusively with partners, it’s more “our” writing process.  I’m glad there are questions accompanying this blog hop, or I’d be lost.

What am I working on?  Well, Dawn Treadway and I submitted the first manuscript in her “Progeny of Sin” series, and we are poking away at the sequel.  I say “poking” because she is in nursing school with finals every couple of months, and I work full time.  “Progeny of Sin” is a paranormal adventure/romance series that follows a family of daemons who has escaped the hell-like realm of Sheol and now protects the human race from the denizens of that realm.  (Can't wait to see the cover art!)

At the same time, my other writing partner, Patricia Laffoon and I continue to work on the first book of “The Realmwalker Prophecy”.  This adventure/romance series will have elements of paranormal, historical, science fiction, and fantasy.  The first book takes place in what we know as the 18th century Caribbean, a high seas adventure with a love story between an ex-pirate and a mermaid.  (These covers were made for the initial short stories that led to the series, work in progress.)

How does my work differ from others in my genre?  “Progeny of Sin” is Dawn’s baby, but I will tell you how I think it is unique is in the combination of strength in the female protagonist, and her incredibly quick wit when faced with impossible-to-fathom situations.  She’s a human with a unique gift that just gets thrust into this bizarre world of demons and other realms, and does so with a bit of quirky humor.  One of Dawn’s strengths is writing dialogue, and I’ve learned a lot from her.

“The Realmwalker Prophecy” is a unique take on the paranormal romance series, I think, but I don’t want to give too much away at this point ;-)

Why do I write what I do?  Well, there is more to this story which if you are interested you can read starting here and continuing here and here, but in a nutshell, my wife introduced me to a paranormal romance series, I started writing role play / fan fiction in that series, and it simply flowed for me.  It’s writing people who are real, that we can relate to, but have these special abilities or backgrounds.  It’s different than writing pure fantasy or sci fi.

How does my writing process work?  I really enjoy writing with partners, which I know seems a little unusual.  The collaboration, bouncing ideas back and forth, and the feeling that you are “in this” with someone else gives a certain validation to what you are doing.  That being said, I enjoy winging it a bit.  It’s more fun, and doesn’t feel like it did writing in school, where you needed to submit an outline and then follow that outline.

My work with Dawn started out as an author-editor relationship, which turned into a co-authorship when I gave her some ideas and she asked me to come on board as a co-author.  She builds the framework of plot and settings and starts the writing process.

My writing with Patricia has been in a role play style, whereby we each create one of the main characters, develop our own backstory and personality for them, and then write scenes back and forth in an interactive style within a particular setting or situation.  Then we take that and edit it into a more traditional narrative, keeping the elements and point of view that seem to fit the best.  We have reams and reams of stories to tell this way which was the genesis of “The Realmwalker Prophecy”.  (I have ideas in my head for at least eight books in this series, based on all the writing we’ve done together.)

The two different relationships and processes actually help keep things a little fresh for me, preventing the writing from becoming rote.  The challenge is time, which has been scarce of late.

Tag, you’re it!

Brigid Coady:  Brigid is part of the HarperImpulse team of authors.  Like me, she is a non-practicing engineer working in project management!  (Funny how that happens.)  She lives in London and yet loves country music.  Brigid has her own blog and is also part of a group blog:
http://biddycoady.blogspot.co.uk/
http://theheroineaddicts.blogspot.co.uk/

Torie James:  One of my FAVORITE people, Torie is the author of the awesome New Camelot series, an adventure/romance which gives a whole new take on the legend of King Arthur.  You should absolutely check it out.  She is also planning a book surrounding the legendary Fate from Greek mythology, Clotho.  Torie has an amazing ability to connect with her readers and fans too, I sort of envy her for that.  She is a great friend and writer.
http://torienjames.blogspot.com/