Blog 6

We’d posted in class last week about our writing processes. I wrote mostly what I thought I did for my process along with what I did. But it was also lacking the real depth of a writing process because I wasn’t too sure what mine was. And every time I sat down to write I’d try to observe my process then get distracted by that or I’d just give up and write. Then Sunday night I was listening to a new “Writing Tunes” playlist and I got this fantastic idea for my series. So I started with writing out the scene that I had in my head that was the ultimate end to my sixteen book series. When I was finished with that I started to rearrange my old outlines and merge things together and so on till I was happy. Now for some reason this time as I finished up what I normally did when I got a good idea I finally got my writing process! And I realized quite a bit.


-mainly as I said in the previous post I do have two writing processes
         -one for school one for books and they are totally different


for book writing
- I only follow every step of my process when I lack an idea because going through it helps me get ideas
-I can skip steps in my process if I have a good idea or scene that need to be written
-I outline
-I make up, write, graph, draw, extra material to help me keep things straight
-I file it. All my material I use is neatly filed so it’s easy to retrieve
-Music helps me – it makes me think things – it puts me a certain mood
-there are little quirks I do to prepare for writing – getting a yummy drink – putting on music – get comfy
-I keep a notebook. I walk around with a notebook cause when an idea strikes I’ve gotta write it down or I 
  lose it
-I revise after I have a finished draft
-I revise multiple times
-some of my process causes issues with my writing
     -for example since I don’t edit or revise till I finish it creates issues. Because as I write I change
     characters to make them fit better into the story. So I found at the end of my first draft of my book the
     characters at the end are miles different from their beginning counterparts. So now I have HUGE amounts
     of revisions to do
     - if I really like an idea in my notebook I’ll rearrange things to fit it in… even if it might not be the smartest
     thing to do….
-I’m shy with this writing and I don’t share unless I’ve read it at least a dozen times.
- I rarely share with people face-to-face what I’m doing… blogging it just seems so much easier.


For school writing
-I never outline
-I try to make it a one shot thing. Sit down. Write. Print
-I edit as a write
-I only outline if it’s graded
-Only notes I keep are lecture notes or sometimes for research papers research notes
-I freely share what I’m doing for papers and essays
-my revision is a once over look
-the effort I put into academic writing is very little


As I was writing this list I realized one of the reasons that I have two separate processes. In my previous post I had said it was because I put more value in my book writing. I guess that’s sort of true but that’s not all of it. It’s also to the point where academic writing isn’t personal to me. Where my book writing is. I don’t get offended when a teacher writes comments on a paper about awkward organization, or poor points were made. Where I get offended when someone makes a comment about my book writing. If they say a scene is boring and I think it’s good I get mad. The fact that it’s so personal to me is what I think makes me shy about it where I’m not with my academic writing. Plus I feel that all academic writing is is rehashing an idea someone else had and trying to make it sound original. Where my book writing I actually have the chance to make it original.