5 Elements of My Writing Process

Spreadsheets

I track my daily and monthly progress by colouring a square in Excel, and seeing my progress really motivates me to keep it up. I also use the same spread to keep track of my goals and achievements for that month.

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Index Cards

While second drafting, I fill out an index card for every scene in my book. On this card is what characters appear in the scene, what plot (or subplot) the scene belongs to, and a couple other things like if it moves the plot forward and if my character is active. This helps me see the shape of my book, and easily find holes in the plot.

Sticky Notes

I second draft on paper, and every time I find a problem with plot, character, setting, or pacing (or any other major issue) I write it down in a notebook. Using the index cards I mentioned, I put a sticky note for each problem on the scene that needs changing to fix it. This is based on a method by Susan Dennard, though I’ve changed it a fair bit.

Notebooks

Like most authors, I keep a notebook for each book or series I have. In this notebook I write any random ideas that come to me, keep character notes, but most importantly I use the notebook to second draft and keep track of major changes that need to be made.

Pinterest

I know people who create playlists for each of their books, but I couldn’t live without the visual aid of Pinterest. When an idea is flitting around my head, I spill all those images that keep bugging me onto a Pinterest board. The way I know if I’m really dying to write a story, rather than it just being a temporary shiny idea, is if my Pinterest board has 50+ pins. I know if a story has a hundred pins, I really love the idea, and then I move onto the inception stage of a book where I get to know characters and figure out the world.

Unsung Leading Ladies of YA

The Legend Mirror is all about female main characters. In the first 4 books (three of which are released right now) I have Yasmin, Fray, and Minnie as POV characters. I love my leading ladies, and how they’re all strong in different ways, so I wanted to recommend some other ladies who are awesome in their own way. It pretty much killed me to leave out Celaena, but I wanted to talk about some lesser-loved ladies.

Kami Glass

I couldn’t not include a Sarah Rees Brennan character. She’s amazing at writing complex girls that are as different as they are all epically awesome. I love Kami’s paricularly intrepid brand of badass. If there’s a secret, she’ll leave no stone unturned until she knows it and publishes it in her school newspaper.

Puck Connolly

She enters a race for murderous water horses on her regular, family horse, and she’s SO AWESOME. I love her so much. She goes to such lengths to support her family and herself, and be self sufficient, and she’s strong and emotional and all the things I love. I honestly want to be her.

Adelina Amouteru

She’s complex, she’s conflicted, she’s probably going to kill you. I love her so much, and it’s fascinating and chilling to read about the villain’s journey from innocent girl to murderer. I’m already in awe of Adelina and I can’t wait to see what she becomes in the third Young Elites book. Side note: I also want to mention June, of Legend – also by Marie Lu – in this post. June is another flawed, complicated women, and Marie Lu writes them so well.

Natividad

I love how Natividad is both a soothing influence, a calm heart, and a passionate girl who will rebel for the things she believes in. In a world ruled by Black Dogs, she’s the one I really loved and admired for her bravery and her determination to protect her family and her place in the world.

5 Reasons To Read THE POWERS OF CALLAIRE

Since POWERS is newly out, I thought I'd give you a few reasons to continue The Legend Mirror series and pick up a copy, and spotlight some of my favourite moments in the book. So here are...

5 Reasons To Read The Powers of Callaire

One

Because you want to read about Vic, one of Yasmin’s best friends, going to the Otherland – literally hell – dressed in a green dinosaur onesie. Was I cruel to have him face to Ruler of All Souls in a onesie? Maybe. Would I do it again? Oh hell yes.

Two

This book goes far beyond the other two in terms of Earth’s scope, and shows the Legendary world in a whole host of new locations.

Three

Bonding of all kinds. Besties fighting and then making up? Check. Girls bonding through crazy dangerous situations? Check. Friendships of all shapes and sizes? Check, check, check. My books are always all about the friends. In this book I tried to show platonic friend love with the same detail and time as I’d spent on Yasmin’s romance.

Four

Everyone loves a tragic love story, right? The love between Fray and Yasmin is fated and doomed and all the other good stuff that leads to tragedy.

Five

This book doesn’t really have a cliffhanger! There are certainly elements, but after the end of DRYAD, this is pretty easy going. And it has a happy, hopeful ending! If The Dryad of Callaire frustrated you to no end (and honestly, I can’t blame you if you’re mad) then you need to read The Powers of Callaire ASAP.

More about POWERS:

Yasmin’s girlfriend is dead, but she will stop at nothing to bring Fray back. Even if that means going to the Otherland and making a bargain with the Ruler of All Souls. If Yasmin finds Pluto’s lost power, they’ll return Fray’s soul to her body.

Yasmin’s search takes her, and two of her friends, from Bucharest to France to Wales, and exposes a horrifying secret with Venus, Yasmin’s mother, at the heart of it. With a murderous, fiery god and the incarnation of death in her way, Yasmin will have to compromise her morals and harness the Legendary power in her veins. If she fails, Fray’s soul will be lost forever.

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ADD TO GOODREADS

Writing Everyday, a post on perseverance.

I think this is probably my first real post about writing on WFS, possibly ever. Usually I'd chicken out before posting, since I'm not exactly the best authority on writing and very few people will be familiar with the books I've written, but what the heck - it's Nanowrimo, why not?

In the last 3 months I've written 130,000 words. A whole 130K, and I was pretty darn shocked when I looked back and made that calculation. I have been writing a lot, but I didn't think it was that much, and for a while I couldn't work out why. And then it clicked - that bit of writing advice I'd seen from dozen of authors, the one that says writing everyday is essential, is actually true. And to think I'd scorned it, because I'd been writing for the past few years and had never written more than 25K in a month. I thought it was the age old thing - one man's advice is another man's nightmare. I assumed it was just one of those things that only work for some people. Nope. Nu-uh.

The thing with writing everyday, I've found out, is it takes time. You can write everyday for a month (Nanowrimo, anyone?) and produce a tonne of words, and slack off and write only a couple thousand the next month. You have to keep up the writing everyday, week after week, month after month. Writing everyday is a HUGE commitment, but it really does, eventually, pay off. It's taken me months of full time, everyday writing for it to kick in and for the words to come at the rate all those writing advice posts promised.

I say I write every day ... but I do take a few days off. I've found if I force myself to write on days where it feels like pulling teeth it just doesn't happen at all. My mood suffers, my writing is horrendous, it all goes to crap. But overall, looking at the overview of the month, I write 80-90% of the time. Maybe three or four days off, but those other twenty seven days? Racking those up, month after month, really really works. It just takes time, for the routine to settle. Maybe at the beginning you'll write 200 words a day. Maybe by the end you'll write 5,000. I've gone from taking 5 or 6 months to write a 100K+ novel to taking half that time.

So keep at it. I bet at some point it'll all kick in for you too, and you'll look back and be like 'I wrote HOW many words?'

~Saruuh

(Keeping track of progress on a spreadsheet is pretty great for this, as it lets you see your progress at a glance. Maybe at some point I'll write a post about my spreadsheet set up!)