I’m just so happy to have been invited to participate in this workspace blog hop! I was invited by my fellow blogger, the uber-wonderful, C.S. Boyack. You should check out his blog, Entertaining Stories. It’s pretty entertaining.

So now I get to talk a little about my writing process and show you where I work. First I’ll start with the where:

I often find myself staring at this bush. I love roses, though I stink at caring for them. Lucky for me, this one’s a fighter! And it blooms six months out of the year. The blossoms are these enormous, heavily fragranced, coral-colored roses. Right now, they’re on the tail-end of the blooming, so the bush needs another trimming.

So there you have the space. Now… a few quick facts about my process.

Well, I usually start at the end. I don’t know why, it’s just they way my kooky mind works. I start at the end and work backwards.

I LOVE the research and editing stages of writing. I probably spend twice the amount of time editing than I do writing. Each book I have written has at least 30k words that never make it into the final manuscript.

I usually carry a book idea around in my head for a few months before I start writing about it. And before I begin writing, I usually take some time to develop the characters I will use. I want them all to feel like real people so I need to think about who they are, develop their background and strongest traits. I need to be able to explain to myself why this character or that one makes the choices that they do and because of this, most of my characters have extensive back stories that never even make it into the books.

That’s it for me!

I hope you enjoyed my lame weirdness.

Next I’m tagging… Crap.

It’s so close to Thanksgiving, and most of my writerly pals are doing their thing, stepping back from the blogging thing and on their way to visit family. So… how about anyone who read this (except he who tagged me, C.S. Boyack) is invited to post next?

Just leave a comment below and tag me in your upcoming post.