Blog Chain: Gotta Keep On, Keep On, Keep On Writing

Pull up a chair and join us for another blog chain installment. Today’s topic is brought to you by Eric. He asks:

When was the last time you just sat down and started writing, with nothing but a whisper of an idea to guide you?  Did you find it easy to do or did you find yourself struggling for a more organized story?

Oh man, great question, but I can’t remember. Months ago? I’ve been plugging and plugging away at my next novel PIECES OF US and have been doing revisions for my editor for the last month or two. So I can’t say, I’ve answered the whispers for new ideas in a while. But, this was one HUGE revision. I ended up adding 25K words (quite ironic since when I did revisions for INCONVENIENT, I had to subtract over 20K words). Therefore, in a way, there were lots of ideas beckoning. I had to expand lots of characters and it was great getting these little brainstorms about what could pull everything together. Or I’d be in the middle of writing one scene, when inspiration would hit and the story would go in a completely different direction but one that it should have gone to all along. I guess my answer then is a little of both. I had the skeleton of the story there, and then I got ideas that pushed it forward and made it deeper.

How about you? Do you prefer the whisperings or a writing guide? Check out Michelle’s post for her thoughts, and stop by tomorrow at Laura’s blog for more writerly musings.

P.S. I’m not quite sure what the title has to do with the post but those Brady kids always worked without an outline!