My Writing Habits

For this post, I've decided to talk about my writing process. Usually, for my novels, the basic setting just pops up in my mind at some random point in time. My inspiration are either other stories, events, moral lessons, even other inspirations. I want to write my ideas down somewhere, but sometimes when I'm nowhere near a computer or some pen and paper, I have to repeat the events that suddenly come to me over and over again in my mind as a way to commit it to memory. While keeping the basic plot in mind, when I'm actually writing, I tend to write as the ideas for details come to mind, sort of like free writing. Sometimes I consult a basic outline for the story, but mostly, I free write while trying to keep as much as possible to the basic plot. Normally, however, I start getting off-track from the original plan, and my stories end up taking a different direction once they're on paper. The basic plot is still there, just with a different sort of result. 

Take my Ben and Co. novels for example. I had actually intended for the second book's ending to close the whole series, and it was supposed to be over five books. The main character wasn't supposed to become a dragon until that final book, but instead, I put that for the first book. From that series of five books, I instead decided to make it just two books. But then, I once again decided to make it about more than five, and started writing a third one. It's being published chapter by chapter on Hubpages.

Depending how attached I am to a story, I tend to work on certain ones more often than others. I currently have one story, also being worked on in Hubpages, on hiatus because I'm more into the other stories. I do plan on getting back to it eventually. Just not at the moment.

I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I'm mostly attached to adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery stories for kids and young adults. Those are the kinds of stories I like to read, so those are the kinds of stories I wanted to write.