Posted on Jul 01, 2014 | Tags: | Comments (0)

My blog entry for the Writing Process Blog Tour…

This blog entry is part of the My Writing Process blog tour- I was invited by E A Nash- go and check out his blog here

1) What am I working on?

I always have my fingers in too many pies- one day they’ll discover a live creature in one such pie and I’ll be munched under cover of pastry. Until that day, however, I’ll juggle several works at the same time. The two main ones at the moment are the fourth book in the Aona fantasy series, “The Spiral Heart”, and my first book for children, “Summer’s Dark Waters”. I say it’s for children but I reckon there’s plenty there to interest readers of all ages.

Other projects include my compilation of short stories, which has been on the back burner for a while and is (still) not far off completion, and a new fantasy series I have rough plans and maps for, but little else at the moment.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I try not to think in terms of genre for a start, and that in itself hopefully makes it stand out. It is what it is, whatever that turns out to be. The Aona series is usually described as fantasy but there are elements from a number of other genres in there. I’m not the biggest fan of genres in general. They can be a convenient label on occasion but I generally find that they hinder more than help. Many traditional publishers have long turned up their noses at anything considered to be remotely “fantasy” for example.

I try to write mainly about the characters- I’m not big on elaborate battle scenes, the exact biomechanics of sword fighting, an entire chapter devoted to the economics of a medium sized town or five pages describing a castle in perfect detail. I like to give imaginative readers enough to let the scene blossom in their minds without me telling them exactly how it needs to be.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I’ve loved fantasy from a young age and it was just something that I ended up doing really. I’ve never been much of a career person (or indeed a career person at all) nor had much success of any kind outside of writing- so I appreciate every little step along the road to (at least moderate) success that I’ve taken so far. And just to extend the question, I keep writing because of those small but encouraging steps and the comments I’ve had so far from readers.

4) How does my writing process work?

It starts with an idea, a picture or maybe a scene from a dream- something often vague and insubstantial but still enough to at least start writing about. I don’t have a detailed plot to begin with, and quite often as the work builds I still only have a faint and scrappy idea of how it will all pan out. Somehow it all falls into place (and if it doesn’t, eventually it gets binned) and I don’t tend to worry too much about the exact detail of it- if it feels right, then I trust my instinct and leave it at that.

Next week on the blog tour is Anthony Lavisher. Here’s a little intro to him…

Anthony has always loved writing stories and after many years of enjoying other authors’ works, he has finally decided to try and give something back to the literary world. From an early age, since reading The Lord of the Rings, he has been inspired to write his own stories. He states that his favourite author is David Gemmell and his style of writing has been inspired by the sadly missed author. Anthony lives in Wales with his wife Amy and their cat Bruce. He is currently working on ‘Vengeance of a Storm’, the finale to the Storm Trilogy.

Go visit Anthony’s blog and check out his Writing Process entry next week!