I am so honored to have been tagged by the talented Meredith McCardle and Vivi Barnes in the “Writing Process Blog Tour”. Basically this tour is a chain of writers talking about their books and how they write. Meredith’s YA, THE EIGTH GUARDIAN, releases on May 6th. Vivi Barnes is the author of OLIVIA TWISTED, which is a fantastic retelling of OLIVER TWIST.
1. What am I working on?
I’ve been getting a lot of emails about this from fans, and yes, I am working on book 3 of the Gilded series. This one just might be my favorite of the three. I can’t say much other than think Chinese mythology, more fight scenes, forbidden love, and end of the world kind of stuff.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
The Gilded series is unique in that there are very few books out there that meld Asian fantasy within the modern day world. Rick Riordan does such a great job doing this for Greek and Roman mythology. So after living in Korea, I wanted something like this for teen readers but with a female protagonist and an Asian focus.
3. Why do I write what I do?
When I first start writing a story I never really know what will come out. That’s why when I write, I listen to those voices in my head and let what is speaking to my heart pour out. I try to not let external things come in the way such as what’s selling right now or what people supposedly like. Because if I wrote what everyone else said I should be writing, it wouldn’t be my story or my voice, but someone else’s. And it definitely wouldn’t be the story that needed to be written.
4. How does your writing process work?
I always start off with daydreaming. I spend a good month imagining the story in my mind, so much that I pretty much know the characters and what will happen even before I start writing.
From there, I plot out my outline and brainstorm my characters. I’ll have that outline on a big piece of butcher paper in front of me when I start fast drafting. I can draft up a novel in 1-2 months. That’s pretty fast but the manuscript is a train wreck afterwards.
It takes me months to get the story into shape before my critique partners even see it. After my crit partners read it and I make the revisions, then it’s off to my agent and finally I get to hit SEND to my editor.
And I’m free from the process for about five seconds.
Until it starts all over again.
And now it’s my turn to torture someone. My picks are two fabulous and talented writers: Larissa Hardesty and Tara Gallina.
A big thank you to the Windermere Library for allowing me to have the launch there. They even invited me back for my next launch in September! My family helped me set up and decorate the library with Korean decorations.
