On The Writing Process (Blog Tour Post)

Let me start off by thanking Matthew Wilbur, one of my #WritersRoad friends, for inviting me to post this as part of the Writing Process Blog Tour. Check out his blog at nightveil.blogspot.com and follow him on Twitter, @Nightveil. He’s cool.

So now I’m supposed to talk about what I do as a writer and why and how and all that. Since I have no idea what I’m doing, really, this should be fun.

1. What am I working on?

My current work in process (or WIP) is a YA (teen) fantasy set in a world where history and myth have become blurred to the point that no one really knows which is which. My main character has some nifty knife skills and a horse that she will do anything to protect…including maybe magic. It’s about 85,000 words (300ish pages) right now and I’m moving toward the ending, which scares me because I don’t exactly know how the ending will go at this point. 

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Is anyone even writing YA fantasy right now? Seems like just about everything is paranormal or urban fantasy or dystopian or steampunk or something these days, and what I’m writing is just plain fantasy, with other worlds and magic and trees and mythical creatures and that sort of thing. It’s what I love and maybe it’s not selling right now but I don’t really care. I write from a very Christian worldview, which is different from mainstream fantasy, for sure. I don’t write allegory and I try not to preach but what I believe about God and the world is my life, so of course that’s a huge part of what I write.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Writing about God and universal truth in a different world is a strange sort of experiment, and honestly, I’m attempting to write it because I thought it would be a fun challenge. It is a challenge. I hope that the end result is a faithful representation of the story that I believe we all want to be a part of: something good, something bigger than ourselves, with beauty, community, and sacrifice, and an attempt to explain the unexplainable. This is a story I believe in, and it’s the story I feel compelled to write. It has not been easy for me, but I love it.

4. How does my writing process work?

In a word, chaos. I enjoy organization and outlines but my brain just won’t settle down and follow them. I do start with an outline, which I follow more closely than I think I do, and then I revise it when I really stray. I’m on the second(ish) draft of this book but probably the eighth or ninth draft of the outline. When I started the current rewrite, I added a plot. That was a big deal. I had these characters that I loved but nothing really happened to them and they didn’t do much. Now I have things like story arcs and villains. I am very pleased with that.

To borrow an old analogy, this process has been like building an airplane in the air. Everything I read and everything I write teaches me something new about writing, so my WIP has been in this shifting state of flux for several years now. I think it keeps getting better, but it’s not good yet. I write when I have time and someone else is watching my kids. So maybe two hours a week. It’s slow going, especially when I keep going back to the beginning to incorporate changes I made because of a brainstorm I had in the shower. I’m not getting paid for this, I don’t have deadlines, and although I really want people to read it, I’m not ready for that yet. I want it to be good. I hope I will know when it is.

The Writing Process Blog Tour continues next week! Let me tell you about the friends I invited to join:



In addition to being my BFF, Ashley Linne is a wife and mom who loves to write, sing, and travel, She has been writing and leading small group Bible studies for over 15 years and cute her ministry teeth as a collegiate campus minister in her home state of New Mexico. Ashley has a Master of Arts in Family Life Education from the Oxford Graduate School and studied at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She lives with her husband and son in Bellingham, WA. Find her at ashleylinne.com