When fellow author and friend, Melissa Cutler, tagged me for a blog hop focusing on our writing process I scratched my head wondering what I'd gotten myself into with this blogging business. Luckily I was able to sneak a peak at Melissa's answers, nod my head a few times as I read through her post and had the thought - she makes this look easy. Maybe it's not so hard. Just chatting with a few friends about my writing and my stories.
Piece of cake, right?
1.) What am I working on/writing?
BLIND SIGHT came out towards the end of last month and since then I've been working on the next in the PSI Sentinel series: GAVIN'S WOMAN.
Gavin Dunbar, liaison between the PSI and the government, is a low-level psychic himself, a man of the present who believes the future is too nebulous, too fluid - that it can't be trusted. His reasons are mired deep in a past he has no desire to examine.
Calea Fontaine is a seer from a long line of seers. But she knows, firsthand, that while Fate might try to guide a person along a path, Free Will has a way of trumping destiny.
Or does it?
These two are about to find out .... And I get to go along for the ride!
2.) How does my work/writing differ from others in its genre?
I've always been fascinated by the psychic world. From seeing auras to having precognitive dreams, from Astrology to Tarot, from seeing and feeling ghosts to all of the Clair Senses, it all enthralls me. So writing the PSI Sentinels became a natural fit, one that feels right. Like it's what I'm supposed to do.
Now, while some of the things that happen in my stories are larger than life and push that psychic edge nearly to the point of what might be considered magic, I've worked to keep my characters gifts/talents rooted in a semblance of realism.
Sebastian Alexander's energy manipulation in ELSIE'S SECRET, Ben Garrett's use of Psychometry in STOLEN SPIRIT, Gabe Nicholetti's grounding in BLIND SIGHT along with Allison Davis' artwork and her use of the Tarot are all based on known PSI abilities.
If we're honest with ourselves, how many of 'us' were told stories about our Great Aunt Thelma who talked with Uncle Oliver who'd died or our Granny who had the gift of sight? If we shake your geology tree, there's no telling what might break loose.
3.) How does my writing process work?
Okay, so here's the sticky question. And the short answer is my process is a work in process! Each story idea starts in a different way. STOLEN SPIRIT literally started with a dream, although the unfolding story didn't follow that dream sequence, it is where I met Jake. ELSIE was the result of a what if game - what if Elsie Quartermaine had a secret bigger than her hero's? And the germ for BLIND SIGHT was gleamed from a picture in a magazine of a broad shouldered, Italian man who sat staring into the distance, brooding.
So I start with characters who quickly become real. Then I spend a lot of time with a pen and a notebook, working out their back-story, who they are and what's important to them, free-flowing the answers onto the paper. In between all of that I'm also working out a general feel for the plot and getting words into the computer.
I'm not sure I could write if I didn't have my notebook. Pen to paper. Maybe it's a kinetic energy type of thing, that feel of the pen rolling across the page.... Each story has several notebooks filled with everything from plot points to dialogue to actual whole scenes hand written with scribbles and extra notes all along the margins. What's funny is that I rarely refer back to those notes, which is probably good since I'm not sure even I could decipher some of those notes!
4.) Who's up next?
Ann Gimpel writes paranormal and contemporary fantasy novels with an ecological twist. She skis, hikes, climbs and on a good day is the alpha female of a wolf pack. Here's a little more about Ann:
Ann Gimpel is a clinical psychologist with a Jungian bent. Avocations include mountaineering, skiing, wilderness photography and, of course, writin. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Her longer books run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance. She's published twenty books to date, with several more contracted for 2014.
A husband, grown children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out her family.
To connect with Ann:
Amazon
Taliesin
B&N
All Romance E-books
Trailer
Click here to read hop on over to Ann Gimpel's blog which will go live later this week!