I am very excited to welcome Cambria Hebert, author of the faboulus book Masquerade, at my blog today for a guest post. So I am not going to say anything else, just enjoy...
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Hey Peeps!
A huge thank you to Veronica for having me by today!! The Heven and Hell tour has been so much fun! When Veronica and I were talking about what kind of post to do, she asked me about the process I go through when writing. So I thought I would share a little peak at the inside of my writer’s head.
Note: Beware of what you are about to see and hear!! LOL.
Usually for me an idea for a book stems from a single character. I get a flash about something that they have experienced and from there I want to know more. And a lot of times that character decided to “talk” to me at all hours of the day and night. It can actually be very distracting – especially if I don’t listen. LOL. Sometimes I feel like I am outlet for them to tell their story. So for the first little while I just listen to them talk and I learn more about them. With Heven in Masquerade – I really liked her and I wanted to know so much more so I started writing.
I went to my closet and strapped on some mismatched socks, a hat with a propeller on top and a sweater with tissues in the pockets – hey sometimes the characters make you cry….
Okay not really. LOL. That would be weird. I wear my pj’s usually when I write. But sometimes the characters do make you cry. ;)
I don’t usually write from an outline – I am too impatient to sit and write an outline I want to get to the good part – the story. Plus and outline makes me feel like I have to follow it when I am writing. My characters like to do surprising things and if I stuck to an outline the story wouldn’t be as good. I do write notes though. Notes on certain things I want to add to the story, exciting scene ideas I don’t want to forget, etc. I write in a notebook that I have and also on napkins, old bills and pretty much anything that is within reach when I get an idea. Then I stuff all those ideas into the pages of the notebook. It is extremely disorganized. Anyone volunteer to be my secretary? Lol.
I also write the book out of order. I write the scenes that are loudest in my head and then I work backwards or forward depending upon my mood. (Yeah – I can be a moody girl, lol). Then when that scene seems to fade out I tend to skip ahead and write what I am thinking that day. Then I have to piece all those scenes together and combine them with new scenes to make it all make sense.
Are you following any of this?
I’m not sure I am.
I pretty much walk around like a crazed person while writing a book with a notebook and a pen asking people if certain things make sense. Then I sit and the computer and pound away at the keys until all the ideas run out. People think I am crazy. I probably am. Ha ha ha ha.
I do keep a list of all the characters in my story with their descriptions, likes and dislikes and certain character traits. You would be surprised how often I forget an eye color or some small detail so a list to refer to is a must.
For Masquerade I also wrote a timeline. It was helpful to keep all the events straight that happened before and after Heven’s accident. The timeline also included information about Sam.
After the rough draft is written I go through it with my editor and we flush out all the things that don’t add to the story or the things I wrote that make my characters seem bi-polar (I tend to make them bi-polar a lot). For Masquerade we added a lot of content to give the story more depth and detail.
So that is pretty much my process when writing a book. I go from crazy to crazier! LOL!! Thankfully the mess in my head usually translates onto paper pretty well.
It definitely keeps things interesting and I usually am never bored.!
Thanks again to Veronica for having me here at her marvelous blog today!!!
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I hope everyone enjoyed this post, I know I did. So for more stops on the Heven and Hell tour you can go to my right sidebar. I have posted all the direct links so far. There are guest posts, reviews, interviews and my personal fav...giveaways!!!
You can get the prequel to Masquerade for free!!!
Click Here
