Writing Process Blog Hop

My critique group friend, Alayne Kay Christian, tagged me in a blog hop about my writing process. Hop over to her blog to read her post, then hop back here to read mine.

1. What are you working on?

I’m always juggling multiple projects. Here are a few of the things I’m working on at the moment:

* Picture book revisions on multiple picture books

* Finishing revisions on a middle grade magical realism mystery

* Beginnings of a middle grade contemporary novel

* Articles and essays at varying stages of development

* Research for a non-fiction picture book

* Querying agents

2. How does your writing process work?

Like I said before, I juggle multiple projects. I typically make a to-do list of all of the things I need to do for the week. It will involve writing (drafting), revisions, research, submissions, blog writing. I work off this list. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is the main project, which at the moment is finishing revisions on the middle grade magical realism mystery. As the day goes on, I’ll work on various projects off the list.

I find that I rewrite a LOT. I might do dozens of rewrites on something. My picture books morph and get revised a LOT. I’m a big fan of Scrivener for my novel writing, so I do a lot of color-coding and connecting threads on the corkboard feature. I color-code by hand with markers and highlighters and colored pens. And I really like to print out things and physically mark on them. I know some people do all of their revising on the computer, but I just can’t do that.

3. Who are the authors you most admire?

I’m a huge fan of Kate Messner. She was a teacher and now she is a full-time writer. She organizes Teachers Write, an online writing community for teachers who want to write more in the summer. She also has published in multiple age groups from picture books, chapter books, middle grade, young adult, and teacher resources. In several years, I would love my publishing credits to be in multiple categories too.

I also greatly admire Katherine Paterson because she wrote many of the books that made up my childhood. But also because she wrote while raising four children. If she did it, then I can do it too. She also knows what it’s like to feel at home in another country besides your passport country, so I feel like we share some commonalities with that.

I could go on and on. There are so many authors that I admire. So many that have shaped my desire to be a writer and so many that serve as current role models in the business.

Tag, you’re it!

I’m tagging E.W. Clark.