Category: Writing
-
Self-Doubt is Lying
Some parts of my process are really fun. The idea stage, the planning stage—mapping things out with an outline, checking my pacing, discovering themes. My absolute favorite part is formatting the finished work as an ebook and reading it through to check the readers’ experience. Other parts are not so much fun, and self-doubt is…
-
What are you working toward?
Last week I talked about one of my favorite writing questions: What are you working on? There’s another question that’s just as important: What are you working toward? I think about this a lot. I make plans and goals. I break things down into manageable tasks and give myself deadlines. Sometimes I make them and…
-
Nostalgia—or a Message?
I had the opportunity to catch up with a friend recently and they asked my dearest question. What are you writing lately? The conversation somehow trailed back to earlier ideas—stories I haven’t thought about in years and never wrote down but was excited to tell them about. The next day, another friend triggered a memory…
-
Why Romance?
Sometimes people ask me why I choose to write Romances. First and foremost—I am a fan of love. The initial spark of attraction, the deepening knowledge of each other that feeds the fire, the moment when the warmth of the emotion soaks in soul-deep and they know. I can’t get enough of that. Second—I am…
-
Haunted by the Phantom
I’ve read voraciously for as long as I can remember. Listening to the inner monologue of characters, seeing them work through challenges, and learning how different people relate to each other and their world fascinates me. In middle school, I discovered one of the stories that would haunt me for the rest of my life—Gaston…
-
It’s All in the Details
Writers are often asked about where their ideas come from. For me, that would be lightning strikes of creativity where my brain concatenates events and experience with my imaginative wanderings. Ideas are a popular focus for questions, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone ask where the details of the story develop. This is…
-
The Importance of Being Holly
Finding the right agent or editor is a very important piece of the publishing puzzle. I spent several months learning about various editors and agents, following their Twitter feeds to get a feel for who they were and what they might be like to work with. Many talked about receiving queries that didn’t fit them—something…
-
Letting Them Go
When I first started writing, I was so protective of my stories that it bordered on paranoia. I had spent my entire life developing a huge High Fantasy world to write in, but was only scratching the surface of what it meant to create stories that had beginnings, middles, and ends. Eventually, I realized that…
-
Reality + Alternate Reality = Surreality
It has been surreal to think about the events of Wandering Soul taking place each day as I’m living my normal life. Walking through the grocery store, I’m picturing Elsa and Dante in Florida. They would be eating breakfast at about that time. Are they having pancakes? Cereal? I didn’t write that moment, so I…
Cassandra Chandler 