Behind the Scenes: My Writing Process

I gotta be honest: as much as I wish my process were the aesthetically pleasing kind with candles, an organized desk, and great lighting, it just isn’t. Well, sometimes it is, but very rarely. As someone who deals with mental illness, on my worst days it’s nearly impossible to even get out of bed, let alone force myself to do any sort of writing. I have been in therapy for more than a decade, and my issues are way more manageable now, but every once in a while I have days where I lie in bed thinking about everything I need to get done and building it up so much that it paralyzes me. There was a time fairly recently that my room had remained uncleaned for about 8 months. It took me 15 hours of cleaning and about 6 loads of laundry to finally get my life back into some semblance of order. That is to say, my writing process is subject to change at pretty much any possible state of being.

When I’m in the best mindset, I find that I can be my most productive when I get out of the house. I lived with my parents up until about three weeks ago and it was often difficult to get the privacy I needed to be able to focus. Or rather, the uninterrupted time. My door typically remained open because my dog, Sheamus, slept in my room, and my parents weren’t always in the habit of knocking before entering. When that was my reality, I liked going to a cafe or to the library to get my work done. I have some 8-hour long soundscapes saved on YouTube that I’ll put on while I write, usually some sort of coffee shop ambience or thunderstorms, fireplaces, and soft jazz. I also created a playlist for my current novel to help engross myself in the atmosphere for the novel (I will be sharing this playlist eventually so you too can be in the world of Greyvern!). If I go to a cafe, typically I do like to get some sort of iced latte or something, but when I’m broke I just go to the library so I’m not tempted to spend money. My local library has a way of making me very sleepy, though…

Recently, I’ve been doing most of my writing at work during my lunch breaks. I work four days a week (that’s the company wide schedule, and we’ve been equally as productive since we went from five to four days), and I’m lucky enough to get an entire hour for my lunch break. I think that, in a weird way, this time limit sort of boosts my productivity. I’ve seen writing tips that suggest giving yourself a set amount of time for writing; once that time is up, you’re done for the day or until your next scheduled time, and I guess that’s supposed to make it so that, once you return to your writing, you’re ready to pick up right where you left off with more ideas that you’re ready to write down. I suppose that’s what’s happening here, when I finish slurping down my ramen and use my remaining 50 minutes to get down as much of a scene as I can. I recently left myself on a cliffhanger, and it was honestly kind of exhilarating.

I mentioned moving a few weeks ago, and since that has happened I’ve had barely any free time. There have been plans almost every weekend since and unpacking and cleaning to attend to, so I haven’t quite readjusted to my writing schedule. On a good day, I’ve dedicated about 6 hours to writing, and I’m hoping to get back to that place once I’m a little more settled in my new home. 

When it comes to the beginning stages of planning my stories, I have to admit that I am extremely disorganized. I think that is because ideas will sort of come at me all at once or not at all. I’ll have my laptop out in front of me with a blank page open and an even blanker mind. But the moment I am in the middle of something, nowhere near my laptop, inspiration will strike. Because of this, I end up with countless notes on my phone or different written pages across multiple notebooks. I probably ought to invest some time into consolidating all of that information into one place… but who has time for that?

Outlining is probably my weakest area. My only other completed “book” is one that will likely never see the light of day. I recently found the file and started reading it and it was impressive just how bad it was. I wrote it between 7th and 8th grade, and I actually did have an entire outline detailing what would happen in every single chapter. I think it helped that I had nothing but free time and knew the ending before I even knew where to start. But since then, my free time has become more scarce, and I’m afraid I’ve gotten quite rusty at mapping out such a lengthy story. I’ve done it, though! For my current project (title reveal coming soon), I did manage to create an outline, but it wasn’t until months after I’d begun writing. I guess I didn’t really know where to start and, further, didn’t know where to go once I did start. Once again, my deep seated spite became my greatest ally in the process. I’d decided to treat myself to Panera and was determined to try to figure out some sort of rough outline. I was kind of fed up with getting nothing done even though it was a story that I deeply believed in. And for the first time in months, the ideas just poured out of me effortlessly. I think it helped that I was typing it all as some sort of stream of consciousness. Once I’d laid out one idea, it was easy to reach out and latch on to related ideas. It was basically one big brainstorming session, but it made me more confident than ever that I was capable of writing this story, and that I would be able to do so in an interesting and heartfelt way.

I had heard of this method for reverse outlining in order to simplify the ideas, and that also helped immensely after I completed the full outline. I basically had to take every paragraph of the outline and shorten it to one, summarizing sentence, and that became the guidebook for each major scene that would take place throughout the novel. By this point, I was heartened to discover that I (in the most simple way) had a completed novel. Well, an outline that would get me to the completed novel part. But it would be so much easier to get started and to power through when I knew exactly what would come next.

One thing that authors are asked to discuss often is how to deal with writer’s block. I don’t really have any sure-fire, secret way of dealing with writer’s block. The truth is that writer’s block is a bitch and we are nemeses. If writer’s block were to ever manifest itself into a physical, human form, I would have no choice but to throw hands. 

But I guess I have a few things that I typically try whenever I’m experiencing writer’s block. The first one is to engage with something that inspires me. Since I drew a lot of inspiration for my book from The X Files, I often found myself wanting to watch the series whenever I felt stuck. And especially because I was watching the series for the first time, it was pretty easy to find some new inspiration with each new episode. When that doesn’t work, sometimes I will try to move on to writing a different scene. This novel began as a random couple of scenes I wrote to establish a dynamic between two characters. I honestly thought it was going to be a romance novel in the beginning, but then I realized that I had more that I wanted to focus on than any romantic tension. But sometimes I will go back to that document just to write some new scene with my characters, even if it is entirely unrelated to the story’s actual plot. Sometimes that will give me enough inspiration to continue where I left off, or to move onto whatever is next and revisit the unfinished scene later. When both of those methods fail, I will really just step away for a while. I will give myself some time to breathe away from the story and the ideas that I have. Sometimes that gives me a new perspective, or a new pathway to follow in the context of the plot. And it also helps me, to some extent, to avoid burnout with my novel.

The other thing that became an incredible help was beginning the partnership with my publishing team, Amberle Phillips and Hannah Escobedo. Before, I was relying entirely on myself and fighting to keep myself motivated to complete the project. When I came to Amberle and Hannah with my ideas, it was reinvigorating to collaborate with two individuals who were just as passionate, driven, and excited about the project as I was. They believed in me, in the story, and in our ability as a team to create something that–if nothing else–we will all love and be proud of. They encouraged me to establish a proper writing schedule, and thanks to them, I was able to wrap up my first draft in just about 10 months total! And the majority of those months were spent alone and relatively directionless; once they joined me on this journey, things began moving much faster, much smoother, and with much more conviction.

For the first go-around, I avoided doing any heavy editing until I completed the entire draft. For someone with an editorial brain, it was incredibly difficult not to scrutinize my work if I went back to reread; it took a good deal of effort to remind myself that the edits will come, they just have to wait. When I first started writing this blog post, it was before joining my editorial team, when I was only a couple of chapters into the first draft. Now, it’s been about four months since I wrapped up the first draft and the rewriting process has been incredible. The story has already grown and changed in so many ways that I never expected. Many of those changes were thanks to my publishing team, but also thanks to my good friend, Vic, who has graciously been participating in the content editing as we go.

So, there you go! For now, that’s about all I have to say about my writing process. It’s not glamorous and it’s not easy. I often feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. The imposter syndrome is no joke. But I try to find ways to push through and keep going, because I have never felt so sure about any other idea I’ve had before, and I’m looking forward to sharing it all with you very soon. Thanks for reading. :) 

What is your writing process like? How do you deal with writer’s block? Was there anything I left out about my writing process that you’re curious to know? Let me know in the comments below!

What Inspired My Book?

For many years now, I’ve enjoyed listening to podcasts, some of my favorites of which cover true-crime, the paranormal, and other mysteries. Although I am not a conspiracy theorist myself, I do enjoy reading and learning about them. I love UFO sighting and alien abduction stories. I love unexplained phenomena like the Gary Sudbrink phone calls in the late 90s. I love learning about secret societies. So when I came to discover what would become my biggest influence for this novel, I was already primed to fall face-first into the lore, the storytelling, and the characters.

My father watched the show when it was airing in the 90s and early aughts. My brother binged the series a few years ago and enjoyed the hell out of it. It finally took my manager (and photographer, website designer, typesetter–seriously, I have yet to find something she’s not amazing at) at my current company convincing me to give the show a try so that she would have someone else to discuss it with. And that show is The X Files.

From the Pilot I was hooked. If I were to rewatch that first episode, I’m sure I could pinpoint every single thing that turned on my interest for the story, but what became most important for me throughout the series was something that I’m sure many other viewers relate to: the relationship between Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. The tension between them is established immediately; the bright-eyed believer searching for the truth, and the logical skeptic poking holes in almost any theory. And as their relationship progresses and their bond grows deeper, that tension is tested until sometimes they seem more alike than either would like to admit.

This dynamic was irresistible to me. It is often considered to be one of the most well done slow-burn romances in media history, and some may not even consider it a romance. However you look at it, I loved the way that these two characters challenged and complemented each other, and I knew that I wanted to create something similar. And when I found that I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for in media outside of the series, I knew that I would need to create it for myself. I wanted a similar dynamic for my characters; I wanted the challenges, the tension, the tenderness, the disagreements, the eventual fierce loyalty. I knew someone else out there probably wanted it too, and that was enough for me to run with this glimmer of an idea that had burrowed itself inside of me.

You know that saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself”? That’s what this story felt like for me. I’ve read a few books that I hoped would elicit the same feelings and encompass the same aesthetic as The X Files, and I have watched a few movies and shows as well that sounded like they might do the trick. At the end of the day, nothing else did it for me, so I knew that I would have to do it myself. I knew that I would need to perfectly craft an atmosphere, a story, a vibe that put me into the place that the show did and that, hopefully, I’d be able to scratch the itch for others looking for this type of story. That’s when Blaire Days and Ira Stone came to be. I knew I wanted a similar dynamic with one person that would be willing to dive head first into an odd circumstance, the other standing by, watching, pushing back. And I knew that I wanted them to have a lot more in common than they first thought.

As this story has grown, expanded, and become something much more than what I originally thought up, I’ve loved getting to look at the ways in which I’m able to weave Blaire and Ira’s stories together. It’s complex and sometimes painful, but also full of love. I hope that you’ll come to find that when you read my book.

Let me know if you have any questions down in the comments! The next few months will have many more sneak peeks and releases. I hope you’ll stick around to solve the mystery with me. :)

A Fonder Memory

In the spring time, I can remember my mother as she used to be. Bold, hearty, loving, curious. I can remember the way she would stare at me with wonder and familiarity; how she saw herself and so much more pouring out from my words, glinting in my eyes, reflected in the ways I loved and treated people. I recall the times we would spring clean around the house, the windows opened to allow in the sweet, cool breeze and birdsong. The music playing distantly from the family room. Her hum, or the deep, round way she would sing the words to songs. I could feel a comfort in my belly those days. I could feel the connection to my mom, and her connection to me. Perhaps an invisible umbilical cord, tying me to her, always. Sometimes we would ride in the car for quick grocery trips or the occasional fast-food lunch. I can still hear the sound of her popping minty gum in her mouth between sentence. I remember the scent of the hand sanitizer that she kept in her car, a Malibu blue Ford Focus. When I was a kid, I loved that car and thought I would want one like it when I could drive.

I watched my mom a lot and — against my better judgment (I had no better judgment, I wasn’t even adolescent) — picked up many traits from her. I was acutely aware of and tuned-in to her experience as a young woman with two children and a husband. A young woman with a house and (usually) no job. A homemaker, a cook, an artist, a scrapbooker, a party planner, an ambitious dreamer. She was a cosmetologist until I was about five; after a point, her carpel tunnel made it impossible to continue her career. She worked here and there, enjoying the times she worked at scrap book stores, chasing her love for crafting and preserving precious memories among colorful cardstock pages. I remember she wanted to go to school for criminal justice, hoping that she may one day find closure for the murder of her cousin and best friend. I recall the feeling associated with experiencing her and my father interacting, but rarely a specific incident. My recollection — in all fairness, quite foggy now — was of a somewhat tumultuous relationship that nowadays I’m often surprised survived. I remember being in my room, sometimes hearing them argue, and wishing that they could avoid arguing so loud I could hear it. I remember things being my mother’s fault a lot. I remember witnessing her feeling guilty. I think she thought she hid it well, but I was always a deeply sensitive and intuitive child. Later, when I reached my teen years, I would go so far as to suggest her separation from my father; I remember her, very gently and quietly, considering returning to her home state to be with her family again.

Once I was older, I tried distancing myself from my parents as a way to reject the emotions I could feel through them and because of them. I made a conscious decision to feel things in spite of them. However, I had already deeply internalized those emotions and fell into traps that would perpetuate my experience of them and the discomfort associated with them. I would feel the defeat, disinterest, guilt, shame, desperation. I feel like I inherited something from my mother that I don’t even know for certain exists. I just feel it. I could ask, but I constructed so many walls in hopes to avoid a relationship that would mimic my parents that I’m not sure how to just be human in their presence. Growing up, I could feel my mother’s sadness. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I can infer now, but I can’t be sure otherwise. And I imagine she doesn’t remember things the same way that I do.

My mother and me, circa 2012 (or, my blonde era).

She’s nearly unrecognizable to me now. She’s been sick for so long that the library of medication she has taken through the years has changed her so drastically that she feels like a stranger. I get glimpses here and there of the woman who raised me, and I still love her. I love this new woman too, but it feels different. As I grew, I helped her more than she helped me. It feels wrong to say that, but my formative years were largely spent helping my mother survive. Witnessing panic attacks that resulted in ambulances and hospital visits; experiencing vestibular migraine flair-ups that caused her to be bedridden for days or weeks at a time. She’s lost a lot of her memory. She’s lost a lot of her personality. She doesn’t speak the same way she used to. Often, she’ll slur her sentences, unable to recall even basic words; forgetting that only 5 minutes ago she asked me how my day was at work. Her speech is slow and lethargic. Sometimes I think I can hear the gears grinding in her mind. Sometimes I wonder if she still remembers how to be a mother. When we talk these days, sometimes it just feels like telling any other older woman my experiences, my thoughts. It doesn’t often feel like she connects the stories to the person that she raised; it doesn’t feel like she recognizes that her actions and reactions still affect the person I become. And that’s okay. Most of the time.

I’m usually good at resenting her sickness instead of her. But sometimes I slip up; sometimes I look at the things she did wrong and I blame her for it. And it’s likely that some of those things were her fault; we are only human, parents especially so. She thanked God when I finally built up the courage on my own to admit to her that I’d been cutting myself. She brushed off the news that I was accepted to my dream school. She (and my father) allowed my abuser to live with us for a year. I don’t think she has ever meant to hurt me and so I try not to hold that against her. I know she blames herself a lot already; that’s where I get it from.

I would like to hang onto the fonder memories. The warm days in my childhood where my mom would eat snow cones with me, play board games, help me with art projects. The days when I could feel her love, when I could feel her warmth as she sang along to Madonna or Sade, when I could feel that I was my mother’s daughter. I am trying to rewrite the narrative in my head: that my mother, like me, is allowed to grow and change, and that that growth and change is inevitable. If she can embrace the differences in me as I get older, I should embrace hers too. I’m trying. The bones are still there. I can still love them.

Meet the Main Characters

Template designed by Amberle Phillips

What I had long before I ever had a plot for this book was these characters. They have remained the driving force for the story as I’ve written draft one and am working on draft two. These two are two of the biggest reasons that I’ve been able to stay so committed to this project; because I love them, because I believe in them, because I want to see them evolve and watch their relationships with other characters grow or implode. These two have such a special place in my heart, and I hope they will in yours once you get to know them, too. But first, I have to introduce them. So here they are: Blaire Days and Ira Stone.

In another blog post planned for a later date, I’ll be discussing what influenced me to start writing this book entirely, but before I ever expanded the story into anything that made sense, I just had these two, begging me to help them express themselves. I started with Blaire and Ira and I did nothing but write short scenes that weren’t about much in particular and had nothing to do with the novel as it exists now. I wanted to build a dynamic between them, watch them interact and fight and work together. It was a type of relationship that I wanted to see, but couldn’t find in many places in media, at least not to the degree of which I was hoping. I realized that I had to create them myself.

Blaire Days is very intelligent, headstrong, and determined. She’s a problem solver. She’s a bit awkward, but she’s also a hopeless romantic and loves romance novels. She loves a puzzle.

Ira Stone is a lover of life, art, and companionship. He’s outgoing, goofy, and animated; he loves to entertain and make people feel welcome. He’s in touch with his emotions and isn’t afraid to demonstrate that.

Thank you so much for following along on this journey with me. The character descriptions are down below, and I hope that you come to love Blaire and Ira just as much as I do.

Blaire Days

Logical, Resourceful, Open-Minded, Stubborn, Closeted Hopeless Romantic

Ira Stone

Thoughtful, Creative, Optimistic, Supportive, Risk-Taker

There will be much more to learn about Blaire and Ira as we get closer to the publishing date. Stay tuned!

Meet the Author

I feel like something that I always struggle with is beginnings. Where do I start? No matter if it’s the beginnings of a story idea, introducing myself to someone, or even just waking up on a day wherein I have no obligations, I don’t know where to start. How do I convey my point without being boring or coming off as too self-important? How do I adequately express my thoughts and my feelings? These are all still things I’m getting the hang of, so I guess that's the first thing about me. The beginning of this specific journey, however, is something that I simply fell into in a lot of ways.

I’ve been writing since elementary school and it quickly became apparent that writing–crafting stories with thoughtful characters and sprawling settings, arranging the words just right–was my favorite little puzzle. I had all these ideas busying my thoughts, and finding ways in which to convey those thoughts in an effective manner felt like my life’s mission. The names, places, faces, and backgrounds in my mind deserved recognition, deserved to have their stories told, and so I’ve been practicing for many years to translate the language in which they spoke to me. There have been many trashed manuscripts, feverishly scrawled incomprehensible lines, and pages torn from notebooks; only now do I feel like I’m really ready to get vulnerable. To show you what I’ve been imagining for all these years.

When I set out to write my very first novel (title to be released soon) the primary driving force was a beautifully disastrous concoction of spite, dissatisfaction, and blind determination. I had come to a sort of turning point in my own life; I’d been in intensive trauma therapy going on three years but had only recently discovered just how unhappy I was with myself and how I was living my life. I made a series of (albeit drastic) changes, and one of those included following through with this story idea. I was tired of waking up and feeling unfulfilled and directionless. When this story came to me, it felt like an epiphany. I would prove–to myself, first and foremost–that I could complete something that I would be proud of. I think this was exactly the kind of story to which I needed to dedicate myself. As I went on my little adventures to coffee shops and libraries, I began to see the characters painted before me, to see their lives and their motives and their emotions on display. I fell in love with them. And then their stories unfolded as I began to uncover what it was that would come to shake up their worlds. This felt much more effortless than anything I had ever endeavored to write previously.

In the future, I intend to write an entire blog post dedicated to my inspiration for this novel, but for now I will simply say that it all culminated in the discovery of the cult-classic television show The X-Files and the dynamic between Agents Scully and Mulder. That coupled with my interest in space, conspiracies, and aliens was the perfect storm for what has become one of my proudest creations.

I did not expect to set out on this writing journey; in fact, I had started to lose a lot of faith and hope in myself. I’d hit a wall of writer’s block that lasted about 3 years (the timing was very interesting if I really think about it) and I’d otherwise had very little to show for the passion I had for writing. I sort of felt like a fraud, like I would tell people “I’m a writer,” but when they asked what I’d written I’d stare blankly and try to think of something that felt even somewhat worth mentioning. I have shared my writing with other people far less than I’m proud to admit. But I’m hoping that this project will change that reluctance for good.

Aside from the writing, I am 25, somewhat of a nerd, and I really love reading. My favorite book is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and my favorite poet is Mary Oliver. I have an 8-year-old Border Collie/English Shepherd mix named Sheamus (don’t worry, I will share some photos). I love to spend time with my brother and my friends, staying in and watching series or bad rom-coms, playing board and card games, or going out to barcades or jazz lounges. I work as a seamstress, embroidery machine operator, and writer for the apparel company Star Cadet.

In summation, hi there. Thank you for being here. I’m eternally grateful that you’ve chosen to come on this journey with me, and I can’t wait to show you everything that I have been and will be working on. Let’s light some candles and enjoy each other’s company. :)