Photo Collage Inspiration

MEZCreativeProcessQuadPart 1 of Skylar Saffron, Librarian Detective is almost ready for public consumption.

I first started this novel in 2007, writing snippets using my cell phone during my morning commute on the cable car (the ride was about 20 minutes) which I would email to myself.

In 2010 I tried again, this time going to the private library where I write every morning and typing up sections on my laptop.

The rough drafts of the four books I’ve written previously have always been penned longhand in a moleskine. I would write for 3-5 hours each day, and then return home and type up the few thousand words, a way of reviewing what I’d written and making notes for the next day of writing (another 3 hours or so).

Using the Keys

I’m re-training the way I work with this novel. Not only writing the draft on a computer, but only writing a few hours every other day as a way of introducing a more balanced way of working.

When you’re writing story, you tend to think about the story just as much as you’re actually writing. I sometimes spend 3+ hours a day just thinking (and thinking while I cook, walk etc.).

I’m in one of those artistic places where all I can think about is my story and I don’t want to go out and be social, but I’m forcing myself to think different. I’m sticking to my writing & editing schedule of 10 hours a week, and 25-30 hours of contract work and managing my book business. And I’m not canceling all my social stuff, so my friends don’t hate me. And I’m working on trying to make time for love.

I’m striving for balance. Gone are the days where I’m so absorbed by my fictional world I forget about everyone and everything else, including looking at my finances, for months on end. I’ve learned my lesson. And mixing creative work with more practical work, like scraping and tagging book metadata, or updating the In the Stacks pitch and financials, is actually kind of grounding.

Interactive way of storytelling

We’re using all kinds of online tools to enhance the telling of Skylar’s story, and these will be revealed in weeks TK to come. And like this blog, we’ll be editing the text after it goes live.

More soon xo—MEZ

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