It's been a while since I've let someone take over the reigns here for a moment at Confessions of a Bibliophile, so I'm gonna change that! Today, we have author Alexis Cain taking over my slice of literary heaven. This was originally going to be part of her blog tour, but it was canceled due to real life intruding (darn real life!).
Alexis Cain is the author of Ensuing Darkness.
So, I leave you with Alexis taking over! Enjoy!
Alexis Cain can be found:
Goodreads
Blog
-Martha
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Every writer has a unique way of writing their story. It may not work for everyone, but it’s ‘perfect’ for them.
Demosthenes would shave half his head before starting to write so he’d be too embarrassed to show himself in public.Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, would give his clothes to his valet, instructing him not come back until the writing was done, then wrote naked.Lyndall Gordon wrote in T.S. Eliot: A Modern Life that in the early 1920s, the author answered to “Captain Elliot” in his hideaway above Chatto & Windus, a publishing house on St. Martin’s Lane; but at another hideaway on Charing Cross Road, visitors were asked to inquire at the porter’s lodge for a man known only as “The Captain.” Upstairs, Eliot’s face would be “tinted green with powder to look cadaverous.”Thankfully, my quirks aren’t as extreme as theirs… yet. I mean, I haven’t even gotten to the point of being overcome with insomnia like most writers slip into. Haha, yeah I still need that7-8 hours of beauty sleep for my day job for now, but the quirks I do have pretty much all fall into one category. The fact that I guess I’m a little OCD (I’ve been told anyway).The first two are small things. First, is that I can’t listen to rap or commercials while writing. I used to write while listening to the radio, but as soon as a commercial or rap song came on I was snapped out of my zone when I realized I was writing what those people were saying.Secondly, I know authors are supposed to read a lot; some say even more than they write. Well, not only can I not read at all while writing, usually when I’m reading I get an idea and have to stop until I get done with setting up the initial setup for that idea. I’m just so scared that somehow something from the book I’m reading will find its way into my new story. The only way I can read and write is if the book I’m reading is strictly for research purposes, like re-reading the Harry Potter series and The Vampire Academy series to study how J.K. Rowling and Richelle Mead wrote.And I’ve saved my biggest quirk for last. When I’m starting a new story, I set up two MS Word files, one labeled (intro) and the other (story). I have to completely set up the facts before I can start the actual story. Here are just some of the things I have listed on my hyperlinked “Table of Contents”:Possible titles (book and chapter) run by husband for confirmation)Ideas, Suggestions, & RemindersChaptersSummaries (Main summary and then summaries for each chapter)Main Characters & DescriptionsExtra Characters & DescriptionsLocationsResearch on Creatures and/or real world places in book
Speaking of research, I guess that would count as another quirk all by itself because it takes me a few days to a week to get through that because I have to make sure I have ALL the facts. So all in all, it sometimes takes me from 1-3+ weeks to actually get to writing the story, though usually I still jot down scene ideas for later.And that’s it! These are all of my writing quirks…. that I know of.
I want to thank you, Martha, for having me! This was very fun to write and to be completely honest, I didn’t even realized I had these quirks until now, haha. -_^
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