very very literary

This weekend was the Arkansas Literary Festival and I was on a panel with two other authors: fellow Arkansan, YA Author and friend Stacey Jay, and a new-to-me adult paranormal author Deborah LeBlanc.

The program said we were to talk about undead lore that we discovered during our research, but we let the crowd dictate the topic of conversation.

It was fun, relaxed and varied of opinion. And I enjoyed it very much.

I have pictures, but since I'm in the middle of a move, the camera is with me and the camera cable is at the new place... so photos will have to wait.

Since I've started doing these panels, I've noticed one of the big questions has been a variation of "What is your writing process?" And yesterday, each of us had very different answers. Deborah is the "write 16 hours a day just to get the story on the page" type. Stacey has little kids so she's the very disciplined "must write X words a day while the kids are asleep" type. I'm the more laissez-faire of the group, "write when I can or if I'm in the mood unless I'm on deadline" type.

Now, the problem with taking such a laid back approach is that it can take a while to write a book. And it's difficult to get back into a story if you don't actually write on it everyday. So when I'm writing, I do open the manuscript daily and add to it...even if it's only a sentence.

I'm going to try to adopt a more disciplined approach. I'm not like Stacey who writes umpteen million multiple books a year. But if I want this to be my career, I'm going to have to write more--and write more often. No matter what my personal circumstances are.

Once I'm officially in the new house, I think I'll make a plan!