my writing process
So, my writing process is a little unorthodox. When I was younger, people always used to tell me that you need to outline before you write, or else what you write is never going to make sense or flow well. That advice made me feel overwhelmed before I’d ever started and, the one time I tried to outline first, I ended up getting bored before I’d written a single word.
When I sit down to write something, I don’t want to know everything that’s going to happen. I need to leave room to surprise myself. To me, outlines are the antithesis of that, so I don’t do that. At least, not in the traditional way.
In my writing process, the first draft basically is the outline. I then go through and “beef it up”, which is the phrase I always use to describe the process of adding more after edits, even though I’m a pescetarian now.
Anyway, let me not get ahead of myself. Instead of writing an outline for a book, I’m going to outline my writing process as a “some flavor of neurodivergent [probably ADHD, but I’m working on getting diagnosed]” writer. If you have a hard time using the traditional methods to write, you might find this helpful and, if you’re not a writer, maybe you’ll find it cool to read about the writing process? Either way, I hope you read my books and imagine me doing all of these steps while I was writing them.
Step 1. The lightning flash of inspiration.
The lightning of inspiration can strike at any time. Sometimes, I’ll just be waking up and starting my day and I’ll be smacked in the face with this idea that creates a sense of urgency, a drive to create. If I’m lucky, this will happen during a day when I actually have time to write. Otherwise, I’ll write my ideas down in a note, but it’s a gamble as to whether or not the writing will come to fruition.
I always write a note, by the way. I open my notes app and write down all the things I want to happen in the story. But if I don’t also sit down and write the manuscript that same day, it’ll never get done.
Step 2. Drop everything and write.
If I have the time, I’m going to take that time and wring all of the writing I can out of my wave of inspiration. (How many natural occurrences are connected to inspiration, anyway?) Fuck cleaning the house, hanging out with friends, playing phone games, going to a show, or watching a movie – I’m going to drop all of my plans and get to writing.
This is most doable over weekends or other times when I don’t have to work. I wrote Meet Me In The Tower in one day during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. On that day, I woke up inspired to write about 2 guys in college bonding over their love of metal and falling in love, so I sat in bed and hyperfocused on writing it. Writing was all I did for the rest of the day. But besides inspiration, there are a few other things I need to have in order to get into the spirit of writing…
Step 3. Silly little beverages.
Ernest Hemingway said “Write drunk, edit sober.” Well, I can’t get too drunk while I’m writing or else I’ll get distracted, but I do like to have a couple of silly little beverages while I’m writing, regardless.
If I’m writing at a café, I’ll usually drink a huge iced coffee with some sort of non-dairy milk. If I’m writing at home, I’ll typically keep beer (either something with a low ABV or something non-alcoholic, because, again, I don’t actually want to get drunk) and/or other beverages.
When I was writing Storm Season, I was also doing something I called “Abstinence April” where I gave up alcohol for the month. So instead of beer, I was drinking a steady stream of Lagunitas’ Hoppy Refreshers. (If you’ve never had those, you’re missing out.)
When I am drinking, I usually just choose whatever beer I want that day. I also like to have cans of Liquid Death on hand at all times because I just enjoy the sensory experience of opening cans.
(I’m not sponsored by any of these companies, by the way, but I’m very interested in collaborating if they are. ;D)
Step 4. Find a song to obsess over.
I have a playlist – actually, I should link that playlist in the playlists section of this website! – anyway, it’s called “if you can hear this, my wrists hurt” and it’s a collection of all the songs I’ve had on repeat while writing.
That’s right: part of my writing process is to find a song to have on repeat. For example, when I was writing Thirst Trap, I had “Right Into the Bliss” by Katatonia on repeat the entire time, to the point where it became my #1 song of the year on Spotify Wrapped.
As for how I find the song: typically I start out by choosing an artist, a genre, etc., but eventually, one song or another will reach out and grab me through the speaker. It’s always random and rarely related to what I’m actually writing, but for some reason, it will strike me. I’ll play it on repeat throughout the entire writing process, which – as I mentioned above – will usually take the rest of the day, or sometimes multiple days. And yeah, I’ll have that song on repeat the whole time. This is why I can’t have roommates.
Having one song on repeat the whole time I’m writing is how I basically put myself into a trance. It creates a bit of a Pavlovian response. I had “Gazin’ Up at the Moon” by Photophobia on repeat the whole time I was writing Storm Season and, to this day, whenever I hear the beginning of that song, I think fondly of Oliver and Gaines. I miss them.
Step 5. Obsessively write for as long as it takes, at the risk of your entire life falling apart.
Someone once asked me how I have time to write and, the thing is, I don’t. I make time.
As I mentioned above, when inspiration strikes, I have to put everything on hold. My house is rarely clean, although it’s typically tolerable by my own standards. Sometimes, my social life suffers. I don’t write nearly as often when I’m dating someone. When I’m really in writing mode, I don’t have time to keep up with the rest of my life.
If you have kids or other obligations, I don’t have any advice for you as to how to find time to write. Sorry, but I’ve just never had that experience. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone has time to have both a family and a writing career, but I admire the hell out of anyone who does.
I can’t write and eat, by the way. I need to get all my eating done before I write. Sometimes I’ll take a lunch break, but more often than not, I’ll actually forget to eat while I’m writing. The words fuel me.
Step 6. Celebrate.
Once you’re out of the writing trance and you’ve typed the last words of the first draft, it’s time to party, baybeee.
What I like to do is hit save, email the manuscript to myself, let out a sigh and/or scream, slam my laptop closed, then drink a beer and put on “Disko Boy” by Shantel at top volume. “Disko Boy” is one of my top songs of all time because it’s tradition. Besides, I haven’t gotten tired of it, yet.
I then get to take some time off from writing and editing, letting what I’ve just written sink in. If I have any ideas for things to add during editing, I write them in the notes app, but I don’t get to editing until I’m good and hungry for it.
Step 7. Make your own edits.
Once I’ve given myself a few days and I get really hungry to edit, I do just that. I read the whole manuscript (often with the same song on repeat as I had while I was writing it) and I try to find any mistakes and plot holes, as well as adding anything I think it needs. That’s the “beefing up” process I mentioned above: I add things I want to add in order to pad the story and make it seem less like a sparse outline.
But no matter how good you are at writing or how meticulous you are at editing, you still gotta have someone else look at it before you unleash it on the general public. Everyone is biased about their own writing, so having an outside perspective is extremely important. Plus, an editor can find things you missed because you’ve read your own book several times already. Your brain wants to read the sentence the way you intended the sentence to be read, but very often, someone else will read it differently and catch a mistake your eyes glossed over multiple times. That’s just how it goes. Editors are important.
Step 8. Send it off to an editor.
This is the part that I used to dread: the vulnerability of having someone else look at your work.
I love it now. I actually desperately crave criticism. But I only got that way because I hired a professional editor to look over Thirst Trap and experienced what I can only describe as “ego death”. I initially balked when I saw how many notes the editor had made. I went through a bit of an existential crisis, strongly considering throwing my laptop out the window and never attempting to write again while wondering if I even knew English because, obviously, I was the worst writer of all time – I mean, look at all those notes. But after a few hours of diligently going though the edits that I paid for, I realized that the words on the page were just that. The notes the editor made weren’t personal jabs at me, just suggestions about the words on the page. Yes, I wrote those words, but they had no reflection on me as a person. That was a massive realization and helped me get past my fear of criticism.
Ever since that experience, I’ve actually looked forward to sending my work off to an editor, but I’m not going to lie to you and say that it’s easy to have someone tear into what you’ve written. You never know how someone is going to react or what they’re going to point out, and it’s precisely the unknown that makes sending your manuscript off to the editor seem so daunting. But you gotta.
Step 9. Obsessively edit for as long as it takes, at the risk of your entire life falling apart.
Just like the writing process, once I’m on a roll, I tend to get absorbed by the editing process. Also, just like the writing process, I’m not doing anything else while I’m editing. I’m editing at the expense of regular household tasks.
And, just like during the writing process, I tend to have silly little beverages. But, with consideration to Hemingway, I typically drink only water and caffeinated beverages while editing.
Step 10. Find a song to obsess over (while you edit, this time.)
Very often, I’ll end up listening to a different song obsessively while I’m editing. I think it was when I was editing More Birds Than Usual that I had “Earthbound” by Sylvaine on repeat. The process for finding the song is the same, but by the time you’re at this stage of editing, you probably never want to hear the song you had on repeat while writing ever again.
(I say that, but the reason I made the playlist I mentioned above was precisely because I still love the songs I’ve had on repeat while writing and editing throughout the years.)
Step 11. Agony.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
(This can happen at any time during the writing process. Or sometimes…the whole time.)
Step 12. Publish.
As we’ve discussed in a previous blog post, I’m a self-published indie author. I do all my own stunts – well, I do all my own publishing, at least.
Publishing can be a daunting process. Amazon makes it pretty easy, but I’m still never sure what I’m doing with the formatting. Making covers is fun, but it’s also hard for me because I’m not a graphic artist. I’m typically not thinking of the name or the cover of the book while writing it, so I have to scramble to put those together towards the end. Shit, a lot of times, I will have already starting the publishing process before realizing the thing needs a cover. And, oh my God, writing book summaries is so difficult for me for some reason…
I could actually make a whole blog post about how to publish on Amazon if y’all would be interested…
If you want that, let me know in the comments, ok?
Step 13. The agony of self-promotion.
Once your book is published, you can breathe, relieved that it’s out in the world.
But then you have to deal with the mortifying deal of being known, as well as the even more mortifying ideal of trying to make yourself even better known through self-promotion. Self-promotion feels gross, it feels dirty, but you gotta do it.
I always post about my books on Instagram and Facebook, letting all my friends and followers know that I have a new book out and that I’m very excited about it. (Don’t forget to add a direct link for them to buy it!) I’ve paid for ads before, but I’m not sure if I’ll be doing that again for Storm Season, because I feel like that only works if you know what you’re doing with marketing. And, although I work in marketing with my day job, marketing myself isn’t my strong suit at all.
My goal is always to make just enough money off of my books to break even – that is, I try to make at least as much money off of them as I spent on an editor, and on promotion, if applicable. Once I’ve achieved that, I can continue to passively promote them through links on all my social media.
Although Amazon doesn’t pay a lot in royalties, I still get an occasional boost of income, which is exciting. Those little boosts here and there only happen because I’m constantly, passively reminding people that I write and publish books, and I do that through having my links on absolutely everything. Even that feels kind of goofy, but you gotta. If people don’t know you write books, and if they don’t know where to buy them, they’re not going to buy them. It’s really as simple as that.
So yeah, there it is: my unorthodox, probably neurodivergent writing process. If you’ve tried other writing methods and they haven’t worked for you, you might want to give my writing method a shot. It’s very chaotic and not for everyone…but it might just be for you. You never know until you try!
If you got this far, I deeply appreciate you taking time out of your day to read my rambling blog post about my weird writing process. I hope you have an amazing day!
I’m not sure when my next book will be out, to be honest, but I’ll definitely yell about Storm Season and post links everywhere when it happens, as described above!
Your friend,
Janvier Olszon