Writing Process Update

Reclaimed Earth series author copies, various editions (and some D&D stuff)

I started this blog over ten years ago. One of my goals in starting to blog was simply to practice writing. At that point in my life I’d dabbled in writing and dreamed about being a writer, but I hadn’t committed seriously to a regular writing practice. Here’s a post I wrote about my writing process and the challenges I was facing at that time.

It took another six years after writing that post before I published my first short story, though by that time I had already established a daily writing habit and completed several novels. As of today I’ve published one novelette, two novels, and eight short stories, with several more pieces sold and in the pipeline (including The Last Crucible, Book 3 of the Reclaimed Earth series).

So what has changed in the eleven-plus years I’ve been writing regularly? And what has remained the same?

• Writing still requires a huge expenditure of mental energy. But I do find I have less mental resistance to getting started. I start each writing day with reading and revising the previous day’s work, and that tends to flow naturally into writing the next scene or scenes.
• I spend less energy and attention putting sentences together, and more energy and attention thinking about character motivation, the experience of the reader, and other higher-level writing problems.
• Writing is still integral to my mental health. On good writing days I feel accomplished, less stressed about whatever problems might be going on in my life, and generally more sensitive and in-tune with my own emotions and psychological impulses.
• I feel more committed to writing realistic speculative fiction than ever. We are in a turbulent period of human history, with powerful bad actors as well as heroic figures working for the best possible outcomes for long-term human civilization. I want to do whatever I can to explore scenarios for humanity, both dystopian and (messy) utopian.
• Morning writing still works best for me. If I get started with any other kind of work in the morning (including writing music or other creative work), it’s very difficult to transition to writing fiction.
• If I don’t know what comes next (in terms of plot and story), it’s time to take a break. It’s entirely unproductive for me to stare at a blank page and try to think what comes next. Ideally I end each writing sessions with plenty of ideas for the next scene or scenes.
• I work better if I have a loose plot outline before I start, with a clear idea of the beginning and ending. But ultimately the characters decide what to do, and invariably that means the plot changes significantly from my preconceived notions.

At the moment, with less consulting work, I’m pushing myself to hit higher word counts. 1000 words a day, over the course of two or three hours (sometimes three or four) is good for me. Ideally I’d like to write 1500-2000 words in three hours or less, without feeling drained at the end of the session. I suspect that what will make the difference is developing the habit of thinking about upcoming scenes more during the times that I’m not writing.

For those of you that write regularly, how have your writing habits or processes changed over the years?