Blog Tour: My Writing Process

Hey guys! So Heather Marie, author of the forthcoming The Gateway Through Which They Came, recently tagged me in the My Writing Process Blog Tour, so here goes nothing! Be sure to check out Heather and Gateway too!

1) What am I working on?

Currently, I'm working on my very first complete novel titled VERY tentatively (as in I just slapped together a random title with very little thought because it was NaNoWriMo), A Moment of Forever. In short, it's a story about a male teen whose life dream is to dance at one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the US and in the world. Ballet and dance is, for him, the biggest (and perhaps only) love of his life. But right before his big audition into the company's training school, he gets into a car accident, injuring his leg, thus preventing him from auditioning. He learns that there are other things to love in life besides ballet and dance, and the book very much explores all types of relationships--familial, friendships, the relationship between a mentor or teacher and a student, etc. (There's just no romantic relationship.) There's a bit more to the story than that, but that's the bare bones of the story. I'm working on revising and re-drafting this since I still only have my terrible NaNoWriMo draft.

At the same time, I've been thinking about another story that I'd like to dive into soon. It's another contemporary, but I think it may be about a female in college. It'll definitely explore online friendships and stuff like that because it's something that's always interested me, and I've been very greatly impacted by my online friends, and I think it's important to show how online friends don't have to be any different from your day-to-day friends.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

For A Moment of Forever, it's definitely different in that it's written from a male POV, in the present tense, and about ballet. On top of that, my novel doesn't have a romantic relationship in it and focuses on other relationships more. And I'm very proud of the fact that I'm hopefully addressing and breaking a few stereotypes and myths surrounding dancers, particularly male dancers, and the dance world in general.

For the other one, I'm not really sure yet, but there aren't many books out yet about online friendships, so I think that'll be cool. I'm also thinking about playing around with the format of the book, so that may be different. 

3) Why do I write what I do?

I chose to write a ballet-oriented story for NaNoWriMo because I learned last year that it's very hard for me to get bored when I'm writing about dance because I just love dance SO much. One of my main goals for NaNoWriMo this past year was to finish the draft because it would be the first time I ever that I committed to at least finishing one draft. So I knew that writing about ballet would help to ensure that I could write enough and write passionately enough to finish the draft.

I guess the same would apply to the other story I'm dwelling upon right now.

In general, the reason I write contemporary is that, although I love fantasy and historical fiction, having tried to write both genres, I realized that I am not at the stage in my writing where I could write either of those two genres well. This is not to say that I don't have trouble writing contemporary as well, but I don't think I'm good enough of a writer to write those two genres yet. I'd like to try again some day though!

4) How does your writing process work?

This is a tough question for various reasons. I'd rather not go into detail about the reasons why it's a tough question for me to answer. But I guess in the most basic form, I don't really have any set writing process. The longest drafts I've written have both been for NaNoWriMo. I have a hard time finding the motivation to write, and NaNoWriMo is a fun way for me to push myself into writing constantly and diligently. I hate outlining, but I love outlining. I hate actually having to create an outline, but I think I almost need an outline while writing. Mine generally just hit upon key points and pivotal scenes. Then I just sit down and try to write. I'm a huge dialogue person, and I suck at writing descriptive portions, so most of my writing is just dialogue, but I basically just sit down and write. I usually like to type on my laptop, but once in a while, I'll use regular pen and paper. And to be honest, that's about as far as I've gotten. I'm working my way through reading what I call my Draft 0 (my NaNoWriMo draft), and I'm hoping to start re-writing soon. I'm not sure how I'll be going about it, but we'll see!

Now it's my turn to tag three people!

1) Allison @ Sleepless Reads. Allison is a fellow high school blogger and writer. She's lovely, and I love her writing!
2) Christine @ Christiney Writes. I look up to Christine for a number of reasons, and one of those reasons is that she seems like the dedicated writer I've always wished I could be. She's busy all the time, but I hope that one day, I'll be able to read her books and see them on the shelf in a bookstore!
3) Natalie @ Novel Reads. Natalie is a new blogger, but I love how unique her reviews are (in that she includes a wallpaper with each one!). We're both participating in Camp NaNoWriMo together in April, and she's in my cabin, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I'll be talking to her about writing A LOT. She's super awesome, and I hope to learn more about her writing process.