From the time I saw that Alison Tyler had an affinity for typewriters, I trusted her completely. I saw this meme on her blog, and asked to be part of it because I like to hold a mirror to myself to revisit my purpose sometimes. I’m a writer, but I barely think about why and my process. I started writing as a little girl, the same way birds start building nests–instinctively. I answered the questions first, then wrote the introduction which verifies the writing process I described below.
What am I working on?
I have several anthologies and some full-length novels I am working on for Ravenous Romance, and I am writing a short story for one of the anthologies.
How does my work differ from others in its genre?
I am pretty much like everyone else, but I am telling the story. No one is reinventing the wheel in any genre, but we all tell the story differently. I am not particularly good about describing myself, but I have been told my storytelling style leaves the reader with an atmosphere of mystery which I like because who would connect that immediately to an erotic piece that is not a thriller? I will go to certain places and take photographs, so that I can remember their details to include in a story. The story I am working on now had a scene relocated from a hotel lobby, to that of a cigar bar that I was in.
Why do I write what I do?
In my experience, love is everything. No matter how people want to resist it and make it seem like it is hokey, once people fall in love it changes everything, becomes everything. So marvelous and intoxicating, like turning around and around the way children do until they get dizzy and lie on the floor to recover. Writing about people losing control in love, I love it. Gotta have that man or woman now syndrome, and the rabbit hole that it takes someone down.
How does my writing process work?
If fiction is supposed to mirror real life (although real life is much more bizarre!), you certainly do not have an outline for how to live. I never do an outline, I think it cheats my characters if I know what is going to happen every step of the way. Usually with me stories end happily, though I like some darkness too. But the cream in the middle is structured from scene to scene. The same way that in an instant I think I am going to do something and end up doing something else, I provide my characters the exact same freedom.
You can read Alison’s meme here, and see the other writers who are doing it as well.
photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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