The Hazel Moon Writing Process...

Lori and I have been writing for years, and I do belong to a writer's group, but I wasn't sure any other writers used our exact method, which involves keeping handwritten notebooks including scraps of paper with ideas that come to us, arrows showing how what line should go with what other line down the page...things like that.

Here we are looking through material we'd gathered for the sequel to Hazel Moon, Hawthorn Moon. We've completed Chapter 1 and we're working on Chapter 2. Using a similar process, Lori has written a number scripts for plays and seen them produced, plays she also acted in professionally.

Here I am looking over a crate full of all the notebooks and notes it took for us to write all the chapters of Hazel Moon over an 8-year period.

For Hazel Moon the notebooks were used to compile the copy from start to finish during which the story and chapters and characters came together, often being inspired by our personal experiences. At a certain point, though, the words and fictional characters come alive and we can see the story in our imaginations as if it were a film.

During a writing session we'll often find ourselves slipping into our characters, complete with voice changes and facial expressions to go with the scenes we're editing...talk about getting lost in the moment!

We'd learned of another writer, Kate Morton, who uses a similar process so when we saw her book trailer we didn't feel so Out There!

With Hazel Moon in the can, while working on the sequel, Hawthorn Moon, we[re slipping right back into our old methods...in fact just the other day I bought some new notebooks knowing we'd be needing them!

Happy Writing to all you Scribblers Out There!!!