How I work #2

I previously mentioned that I don’t brainstorm, but I have also said that sometimes an idea just “bam” hits me smack in the middle. That’s when I grab my Dictaphone or mobile and record every thought. It’s only rough thoughts, but it sets the basis for just what I want. If that be a chapter, a section, a crucial point or something similar, it still really gets me going. In 98 % of the cases it’s at night after I have closed my eyes, and that’s how it always has been. Luckily my husband hasn’t noticed this yet, or I guess he would know all the spoilers by now.

After I have recorded the thought the next step is to write it down. That’s when I fill in all the details. I rarely use inspiration from other stories, but I may study the way other successful authors have written, and then try and form it my own way. Like how have they decided to separate the chapters, or how have they introduced characters to us. These are parts which don’t come naturally to me for the moment being, but I’m hoping I will find my own way in that jungle too.

I have a small goal that by the end of next week I will have completed chapter four. I am contemplating whether to only use the chapters now as a guide to how many pages I have written, and then sectioning them up in to smaller chapters when I am done. This is because everything I write is saved on to the computer, and I would hate to lose everything in one go. There for I divide what I have written in to so and so many pages and then send them off for reviewing. But lately I have noticed that when I finish a chapter it is as if a brick wall is formed that I need to tear down to embark on the next one. So another alternative is to completely forget all about chaptering for the moment and just write, and then divide it all in to chapters later. The last one sounds best, so I’ll see how that goes.

Back to work now!

~Nina