I C Summer Blog Tour – “Navigating the Writing Path: From Start to Finish”

I want to give a shout out to the person that invited me onto this tour, Demi Hungerford, who I know through Scribophile.com and is a fellow blogger. You can check out her blog - http://windr0se.wordpress.com/. She doesn't use humor as much as me and, compared to me, she's a very experienced writer who actually knows what she's writing about. Thank you, Demi, for passing this my way. I had a blast answering these questions. 

1. Share how you start your writing project(s). For example, where do you find inspiration? Do you outline? Do you jump right into the writing? Do you do all of your research first?

Honestly, my inspiration could come from anywhere. It could come from an image that just pops into my head, a dream, something that someone says, a small adventure somewhere, a certain feeling I get. But when I get these inspirations, it's kind of like a storm rushing around in your head. Most of the time, I'm not really sure how to organize it. I don't necessarily outline it. I jump into the writing head first and apply first aid after I'm done. But then again, it depends what I plan on writing. I adventure into a lot of genres, some of which I don't get very far into before moving on. If it's romance writing or supernatural writing then I might jump into it but with mystery, I tend to do more outlining before I start writing my first chapter or story. 

2. How do you continue your writing project? i.e. How do you find motivation to write on the non-creative days? Do you keep to a schedule? How do you find the time to write?

Every writer that I know (which, let's be honest, isn't a lot) have time they put aside each day to write, that's why I'm in awe of them and their writings while I'm over here struggling to put together a simple compound sentence. I have a lot of time to write in the summer and no time at all when school starts back up (college is getting in the way of my passions!) but no matter what, I'll always find time to procrastinate. I don't really have a strict schedule because my schedule is sort of everywhere. But I know that as soon as I sit down and force myself to start doing simple writing exercises to warm up, my motivation will kick in and I can start working on the projects that matter. 

3. How do you finish your project? i.e. When do you know the project is complete? Do you have a hard time letting go? Do you tend to start a new project before you finish the last one? 

My personal opinion on finished projects is "A project is never really finished." I know a lot of fellow writers will agree with me when I say that I feel like any project I do can be better or it's not at it's full potential towards the end. It's rather frustrating and enough to drive a sane writer like me into a strait jacket, though if I was insane then maybe I could create masterpieces and actually publish instead of worrying about how the story will come out before I even start it.

4. Include one challenge or additional tip that our collective communities could help with or benefit from. 
The challenge is always getting past the beginning of the story. Because the ball starts rolling and then you realize you have no idea what happens next... or how it'll end. My advice (and it's very common) know the ending of your story and work backwards from there. Don't worry to much on the details until after you write out your story. If you're writing a novel, then don't go back. Keep pushing towards the end and then go back and make all the corrections and changes you want.

Unfortunately, I have no one to pass the torch onto with these questions because I don't know many bloggers or writers. I guess you could say that my network is very small and MIGHT grow in the future.