Blog Tour - The Writing Process

Huge THANKS to British mate, Peter Facer for inviting me to join the blog tour about the writing process.
Peter is a retired police officer with broadcasting and writing experience spanning forty years. He is married with three grown-up children and three grand-children. Living close to the Essex/Suffolk border, he is able to enjoy country walks with the family dog, Gem.
Peter started writing late in life, but believes that this has enabled his experiences and knowledge of policing to bring a new and fresh angle to the usual UK police thriller novel. Unlike those traditional whodunits, Peter’s “Jake Sullivan” novels are fast-paced non-stop action thrillers with plenty of twists, turns and surprises.  You can check out his police thriller 'Legitimate Targets' or his answers to the same questions at http://peterfacer.wordpress.com/

So, here's the questions...

1. What are you working on right now? 
Right now I am editing the second book to the Titanian Chronicles trilogy, titled Ormnhi Moon (Ormnhi is said phonetically, the h is silent). Where book one, Journey of Destiny, opened us up to the world of Titania and sets our heroes out from the peaceful elvin kingdom to seek out their destinies in a land foreign to them and being infiltrated by the likes of the Darklord Moorlan, Ormnhi Moon sees our adventurers five years on. Where Wolflang, Afeclin and Lenna ended up in the first book, we see what has happened to them and where their alliances lie. Moorlan's infiltration into the Land of Marrapassa is heightened, we learn more about the various characters and their histories and the presence of the Ormnhi or 'chosen one'. Afeclin is tasked to find out what the Dark Mage and Warlord are up to, Wolflang finds himself rescuing old allies and Lenna protects her friend, Sarvina  (who is not all that she seems) with her life.
I enjoyed the write, now I enjoy the review and edit in preparation for turning it over to others to read and edit for me. The plan I am working on now is to have this book out by Christmas.

2. How does your writing differ from others if its genre?  
That is a hard question to answer, you always hope as an author to be original and I strive to come up with ideas that are different to those I have seen played out in other fantasy books but I understand fantasy adventure is not a new concept and has been done well by many others before me, for example Tolkien. As a writer, I look for different aspects to focus on, that I personally haven't come across. In Titanian Chronicles our hero is a human brought up in an all elvin kingdom by the very king himself. His understanding is elvin but is confusingly human.
I also built my world with many original animals and I have a few of my own races in the mix.

3. Why do you write what you do?
I  don't know that I write fantasy because I choose to or more because it chose me. I've had stories of all sorts in my head as long as I can remember. This story was one that stuck and I knew that I had to write out and see through. I am someone who loves fantasy myself but it is not necessarily my favourite genre. I would love to write some kind of crime mystery thriller, (hey I study criminology and criminal justice so I can't help but have stories with a criminological basis in my head). However for now it's Titania that I write about and I don't see myself moving away from that any time soon... even after the first trilogy is written. I'm enjoying it far too much.

4. How does your writing process work?
When  I first started seriously writing I would just sit down, write  and see where it went... I mean I had the main storyline in my head but on the road to getting there I would just fly by the seat of my pants... (I hear they would call me a pantser). It was a bit random and I never knew what was going to come next, which was always exciting. However in writing the second book, I refined my process a bit and began with a whole lot of plotting. I use the program Scrivener to write and organise my files and so when I sat down at the laptop with thoughts of where the storyline was going to go in the next installment, I set up a file for each chapter and scene and wrote a small synopsis for each. It actually made the flow of writing much more fluid. As I would come to the end of one chapter, I didn't have to give too much thought about moving on to the next. I would simply read my notes, have a brainstorm as to how the chapter would play out and move on to writing it in a very planned and orderly fashion. Of course things still changed along the way as ideas grew, developed and presented issues or questions that needed some resolution, which meant it was just as exciting, because even with such plans made, I was constantly surprised by where I found myself.
Now that I am editing, I go through chapter by chapter, re-reading and editing the text, making sure it sounds just right and is consistent with the rest of the book. I have a note book by my side and dedicate a page or so to each chapter, writing important notes that I may need to check up on later so that I don't end up changing aspects about my world, characters or what-have-you along the way. It has proven to be very useful and a quick reference when I need it. Before I move on, I read it out loud and make sure it has a good flow. Also reading it word for word out loud can help to pick up on pesky mistakes that our eyes sometimes miss when reading in our head. I also edit as I write... I can't help myself, after I have written a chapter I read it back and fix any problems, make any changes that I see fit at that time, knowing full well that I will be back to edit later so if I am unsure of something I often will put a question mark in the text to indicate I need to figure something out. However I tend to be a slow writer, in that, I don't just sit down and let my fingers go at the keyboard and worry about how smooth it sounds later. I spend time thinking about the best way to write each line so that I can get across the right message to my readers. Each chapter may take anything from a day to week to write (depending on time restraints) so that I can get it as close to where I want it that I can before moving on.

The End
Next Blog Stop is Dale Furse, writer of Science Fiction/Fantasy (heavy on the fantasy) novel, Curse Book 1 of Wexkia trilogy She has been writing novels, short stories, plays, songs and poems for over thirty years and still enjoys her journeys to unknown places meeting unheard-of peoples and beings. Dale answers the same questions on her blog http://dalefurse.wordpress.com/
Make sure you check her out!