My Weird, Volatile Writing Process For Just A Simple Short Story (Tails Over Tea)

Okay, here's my entire writing process for Tails Over Tea:

I just do it.

I wish.

No such thing, no writer have I ever heard or seen has a writing process that's not more than those four words. 😂

But anyway, a supportive, kind mutual suggested this incredibly interesting idea, and indeed, even I wonder myself how I managed to create the ideas I have.

So... here's my writing idea process! Starting with the most obvious one...

1. Getting the Inspiration

Despite humorous myths told by many non-writers, ideas don't just pop out of our minds. Ideas normally could come from music, environment, landscapes, vacations, road trips, even past experiences both by others and personally myself.

And yes, it is totally fine to be inspired by another book. It is only plagiarism if your plot, storyline, characters, setting...... are exact mirrors with the book you were originally inspired from.

For me, my inspiration would derive from classical music, observations of the blue afternoon and orangey-purple sunset skies, personal experiences, and even a simple bath that leaves me relaxed and deep in thought, if it could be called that even.

If you're asking how long it takes, depends on my brain's cooperation. If I have an idea beforehand, I would start right away. But if it's a new concept/genre I never tried, nor wrote before, I'll need some time to brainstorm. Maybe... a day or two?

And after having inspiration, the next step up the staircase would be to...

2. Start Nailing Cards Down.

This would normally range from crazily-detailed, mega plotting for characters and settings, to just going in mind blank with almost nothing.

From my perspective, I would normally go straight in head-first without thinking, which is something usually frowned upon by the writing community hehe. But usually, I would have a very rough draft plan of what would happen throughout the short story, along with beginnings and endings.

And getting that down, it would finally be time to hauling my arsenals and putting it all down to paper.

3. First Draft Time!

Well... I guess we all know what this phase is. The rollercoasters of emotions, nosediving of motivation levels, and writers block!

I consider this to be the hardest chapter of the process, since my motivation and inspiration to continue typing words down is tested every friggin time! And this part is also where I usually leave the keyboard, and press 'delete' because my confidence and motivation just plummet down below the waterline mid-journey.

But on the flip side, this is also where I enjoy the multiple surprises that come up during drafting. This would be due to me 'pantsing' the whole story, and only knowing the beginning and the end. So... the surprises still get me.

For time, it normally takes from a week, to two weeks, to three weeks... heck, the sci-fi-mystery short story I posted for 'Tails Over Tea' took me delays upon delays to complete! Probably that took me like... 3-4 weeks approximately?

But anyway, getting the chapter/short story/etc. done, I move onto my next step:

4. Editing Erasers Suck!

And now, the part some love, and some hate the most. You could say I'm stuck at the direct middle in this love-hate toxicity.

Now, I won't say I love it, but it's definitely an important part of my writing process, or might as well everyone's writing process to refine words, replace repetitive phrases and just improve the overall draft.

For me, I would scan through the chapter/short story, keeping an eye out for random grammatical mistakes, recurrent terms and in the same time, making sure the entire thIng makes sense with no visible plot holes, or at least minimize it to the maximum level.

Due to being self-published on Wattpad, and not having any funds coming from them, I rely on myself to self-edit the entire piece. But, to any writers that read this, I would definitely recommend professional editors if you could afford, to do it for you. Sometimes, not everything you see is the truth.

But self-editing wise, I depend on softwares like Thesauraus and WordHippo to replace paraphrased words (aka what I'm doing now), and autocorrect signals for other errors I miss. Grammar is self-edited since I trust my brain 90% on them lol.

If you're asking how long I take to edit, normally it takes one to two days for a short story,

And now, after being inspired, nailing my motivations and stories, typing the first draft, and editing them down, it's finally the last step...

5. Publicity!

This is where social media starts to play out in the field of days before publishing, weeks or months even.

Methods could range from using 'Writer Lifts' (although I personally don't really use them), posting tiny snippets as teasers, to even simply engaging with other writers.

What do I mean by 'engaging'? Well, a good example I can give is WritingQs (Writing-Questions). These could be oftenly found by the hashtag #WritingQ, and many notable writers actually do this, for example (On Twitter):

1. @Kiraofthewind1 (She has #KirasWriterQ for her own WritingQ hashtag!)

2. @GabriellaBuba

3. @RosalynBriar

4. @MicheleQuirk

5. @Inkedingraypub

6. @Prochy_Jan

And so many more! I can also be included since I also do occasional WritingQs, although lesser rates since my social anxiety's a rollercoaster mess.

How does it help you? Well, activities like these let people know about your characters, settings, world building, etc. This is an example of what I ask sometimes, which you could observe is themed as character backgrounds. ^_^

Due to possible copyright concerns, I would rather not screenshot other's. BUT, you can still look at them, and answer these similarly fun questions by the twitter writers I have mentioned above, and possibly hundreds more I didn't.

Although I want to elaborate further on the topic of 'Publicity', this post has clearly gone on way too long, and I would probably dive deeper into the topic another post, so... stay tuned!

Anyhow, after that, it would be posting time on Wattpad, and that ends the writing process for me, a self-published Wattpad author!

Thank you to @tipofmyquill for suggesting this lovely topic. I actually enjoy talking about it, and hopefully I can impart some tips for aspiring/newbie writers!

Well, that ends the post so... again, hope something can be learnt from this. Remember:

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Also, here's my dear friend's twitter profile! Give him a follow, because he's, I daresay myself, one of the best people in the community!

And with that, my slices of pies, I shall bid y'all a good day!