My writing process always starts with a character and usually I’ll get a thought of a character or an idea of a character in my head. So in Hello Universe I had an image of a little boy named Virgil who was very quiet and shy and sensitive and I knew it was important to me to write a boy character who has those traits because we’re seeing a lot more very vocal and present girl characters, which is important, but it’s also important on the flipside to see sensitive boys.
He kind of came to me fully formed and I will usually see the character in a situation and I’ll start wondering why are they in that situation? What got them there? And in Virgil’s case I saw this boy who was trapped in a dark place and he’s calling for help and then there’s a girl who is above ground and she’s not helping him.
So then I have to say why isn’t she helping him? She seems perfectly nice. And then I realize it’s because she can’t hear him and that’s how Valencia came to be. And everything grows out from there. And then once I feel like I have kind of like a three-dimensional idea, I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about it, before I ever write it down.
And once I feel like I have that idea I get a notebook and I write it down and put pen to paper. And it kind of builds out from there. I’ll do a summary and then I’ll do a synopsis and then I’ll do a very fluid chapter outline that I follow and then I’ll just you know start writing.
So I usually have a road map, but sometimes it changes. But that’s my process. I also do a lot of doodling and you know I’ll use different colored pens. I feel like it’s important for me. I feel strongly about writing long hand because I feel like the more tactile senses are involved, kind of the more invested you are.
So I’ll use different colored pens so I have the tactile than I have the visual, I have the smell of the notebook and the smell of the ink and I love that whole process. And then once that’s done, I sit down and that’s whenever I type it up in a word doc and then send it off to my editor and then that starts the editorial process.