whatwouldflorencedo:

Love that you took the time to ask, thanks for reading my stuff!

Inspiration comes from everywhere says
every writer ever, the book I’m writing now is not the book I was writing at
the very beginning seven years ago, in fact, it was a fanfiction, it was a
fanfiction I never published for a popular fandom that I read growing up and
thought as a kid growing up I wanted a book like it but darker and grimmer with
more conversations about getting dicked and limbs getting cut off and the bad winning
sometimes and the good not being interested in saving anyone.

“The book” became a book from that after I
started writing it as following one main character who is still in the book but
has changed.

Then, I started reading science fiction
where I had wholly read fantasy, in the mix of all that I read Neruda and
Nabokov and wiki trolled Greek and Roman everything and then came Lovecraft.

The Sandman, Anne Rice, Harry Potter, The
Mists of Avalon, Nabokov’s character interactions and poetry, Robert E Kearns,
Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy, Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, Bulfinch’s Mythology,
The Elements of Style, anime like cowboy bebop, blue gender, big o, wolf’s
rain, spirited away, dbz, YYH, outlaw star, full metal alchemist, movies like
helen of troy and lust, caution, video games like legend of the dragoon, chrono
cross, ff8, ffx, lost odyssey, all gave me inspiration and also there are
things that pop up that are tributes to other things, even if I’m the only one
who notices.

I wrote Parts 2-4 from Spring 2016 to
Spring of this year. Parts 1 and 2 were the most laborious to write because it’s
a beginning and beginning’s are hard.

I’ve also been editing as I write so
parts 1-3 have had their major edits finished.

My process is I outline, vaguely, I make
a powerpoint and use my writing tumblr to collect all the stuff that will go on
those powerpoints, poses, faces, clothing, places, phrases, gifs with motion,
meta, vocabulary, and then I look at them and I write little blurbs on how I
want to use them or things that come to mind for a scene when I look at them or
read them.

I choose usually what characters are
going to be in a scene, and what they are going to talk about, sometimes it’s
the other way around and I know what’s going to be said but not by what characters
and then I write my dialogue, then I fill in the scene around them.

In the outlining step, I go chapter by
chapter, and I dig through my documents and my phone where I take notes when I’m
on the go, I screenshot things I see on twitter and in articles, I break things
down, I think about themes (like they teach you in highschool English) I think
about motif a lot, I like alliteration, I read through notes and blurbs I’ve written
while watching tv or reading or listening to music or when I dictate to my
phone while half asleep in bed. (I believe in the saying that anything you get
up in the middle of the night to write doesn’t need to b changed)

So, I do a mix of a visual outline and a
written outline.

I add in footnotes, I recolor words that I
don’t think are the best choices so I know to rethink them later. I highlight
parts that need smoother transitions or added info, etc.

I print it out, edit by hand, transcribe
changes back onto the computer, repeat the process.

I started writing fanfic, I’ve done it
for years and years and years, I read a shit ton of books, I read a shit ton of
fanfic, I watch a lot of movies and anime and tv shows I like and most
important of all I work on the book, in some way, either outlining, writing or
editing, every single day.

I only had vague ideas and now I have a 145,000+
word beast of a book.

As for what it’s about. Here is a super rough pitch/query I’ve been working on…

A guild head is dead, a cadre of soldiers has been torn apart
by one of their own, and somewhere in the desert an old god has woken.

In the wake of her aunt’s death, and presumptive guild head in
her place, Morag MacCubran’s separate friendship and contempt for the rival heads
of the thieves’ guild puts the three oldest families of craft; MacCubran, Basher,
and Isaure, at odds.

The retribution Morag seeks for dead kin brings the dark history
of the MacCubran clan to light as the Isaure family matriarch, Philomena, lays
the foundation of a guild faction and the Basher thieves grow uneasy within their
own vicious brood.

When the killing of Morag MacCubran’s aunt is followed by the
vanishing of a city’s entire population the tentative, practical peace between
the two families splinters as Philomena Isaure believing Morag might be
responsible in part for the strange disappearance decides the last MacCubran is
too dangerous to have alive among them all.

Struggling against the disparate motivations of his uncle
and cousin, Basil Basher measures friendship, guild duty and family expectation
against the knowledge that his, Philomena Isaure’s, and Morag MacCubran’s family
are beholden to separate and terrible things as abhorrent as the ones that have
killed Maeve MacCubran, slaughtered cadres and walk the desert in shapes as large
as the sky.

In the wake of the realization that many believe her as not
only powerful but as reckless as other’s with her clan name have been before Morag
attempts to subvert what’s been carefully planned for her by Philomena Isaure,
by surviving long enough to claim her seat as the newest guild head.