Savannah Watson

Between changing professions and self-publishing my first novel, a lot has happened over the past few months. I’ve been motivated in some things, and unmotivated in others (writing being one of the unmotivated things, unfortunately). And now that I’m starting to feel reinvigorated, I’ve noticed that my writing process has undergone a shift – maybe to accommodate the other shifts in my life. So this post is a small behind-the-scenes look at what is going on in my writing world, specifically for my novel series Salem Winters: Paranormal Problem Solver.

In my post My General Writing Process, I laid out my writing process. I revisited that post before writing this one and found that most of my process is the same, with only a couple of changes.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I focus all of my writing attention on a single project, which has been my Salem Winters series. For the most part, this still holds true. I have dabbled in another project, but I have not dedicated much time to it.

There has been one major change to my process since my original post – it pains me to say it, but I have been completely inconsistent with my writing schedule. I write when I feel like writing, which hasn’t been often until recently. Originally, I took a hiatus from writing after publishing my novel and transitioning into my new job, but my “brain break” turned into a lack of inspiration and motivation. When I did work, it was editing work – not writing – and even that was a slow, nearly reluctant process.

Thankfully, as I’ve come creeping slowly out of my writing slump, I have spent more time with pen to paper. Lately, I have been writing over my lunch break at work.

With Volume Two in the pre-publishing process (e.g. final edits and formatting), the pressure to write Volume Three has gone up (in a good way). So, I have spent increasingly more time writing – or at least trying to.

Then, the writing bug bit me, and I created an outline for Volume Four in about six hours. I write out of order occasionally, but to have the majority of the plot for Volume Four fleshed out before I’ve even finished writing Volume Three is something else 😅. But I’m not complaining – far from it! I am so happy to be writing again.

My process for actually writing hasn’t changed much – I still write everything by hand for the first draft, then transcribe and polish it on my computer for the other drafts. I have found that this works best for me for two reasons: (1) my creativity seems to flow better through handwriting than typing, and (2) because I have the tendency to write out of order or write the scenes I know and then fill in the blanks later, I find that handwritten pages are easier for me to organize.

Overall, I am just glad to be motivated to write again. I have dived back into my story and plan to keep working hard at it, especially as I prepare to publish the sequel to my novel!

Gotta keep writing! 🙂

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