I have a confession to make.

When it comes to writing, I don’t really have a process. I suppose if I did have a more developed system, I might find I could be writing more.

But that’s never how it’s worked for me. Regardless of what I am working on – whether it’s for work or for pleasure, based in reality or a work of fiction – I never just sit down and write. There’s no rhyme or reason to the way I work, nothing set in stone.

I’ve written in coffee shops. I’ve written on airplanes. I’ve written in my living room. I’ve written at my kitchen table. I’ve written on my lunch hour at the office. I’ve written for the entire weekend from the comfort of my apartment.

And when it came to Not Alone on the Voyage, I didn’t do anything special. I wrote it in bits and pieces, taking the opportunities to further the story as the tale laid itself out for me. I had to wait for the next chapter (so to speak) to know exactly when it was time to write something.

Every single time I sit and write something, it’s because there needs to be more put down on paper. I don’t always write a scene or a chapter straight through – only what needs to be written. It’s never a set practice, and it never makes itself completely clear until it’s done.

I write until I’m done. Plain and simple.

Even more interesting is that what starts out in a piece of writing doesn’t necessarily make it all the way through to the end product. Remember that excerpt I talked about in the previous post? It’s nowhere to be found in the final edit of Not Alone on the Voyage. I’ve even lost the piece of paper I carried around for so long. I wrote it because it needed to come out; I carried it around until I could figure out what to do with it; and then it was lost forever.

Apparently, once it served its purpose, the piece of paper and the excerpt on it felt it was time to disappear…sounds like the inspiration for a new story.

And that’s how it happens. Something happens, something run-of-the-mill, and it just strikes me as being something to consider further. I find myself thinking about something that I saw or read and then I begin to find my brain building a storyline.

No two bits that get written and kick around are ever the same. Each is a different path, a new adventure. Every bit of writing that kicks around is a longer piece of fiction waiting to become reality.

I know some authors talk about having a routine, sitting down at a given time and writing until a certain time. Every day. It has never worked that way for me – nor do I really want it to happen that way. I love the thrill of having inspiration hit me, of getting the uncontrollable urge to sit down and write something on whatever piece of paper I might be able to get my hands on, of being surprised by the story playing out.

That’s not something I want to over think.