About The Author
Question to the Author
Can you describe your writing process?
First Step, As a true Pantser, my imagination conjures a scene, and I write it, and from this scene I add another, and so on, and so on. I write like a spiral, not in order, so I write scenes before and after, many times, never one story at a time, because I am writing a series. I have many book series and storylines to develop. I add a scene to this book and another to another book. I am all over the place.
Many times, I write in shorthand, and I type on my cellphone, and sometimes, I do a writing session; I type on my computer while listening to classical music for more than 30 minutes (I try not to stop at a specific time, but I try to do it for more than 30 minutes)
I also used my phone when I noticed something interesting: I texted it to myself, put it in parentheses, or used a different font in a document to jog my future self’s memory.
*** I started using Scrivener in January 2026, so this step is smoother than before when I used Word and Google Docs. My book series is more organized. Scrivener did not sponsor me. I like to give people helpful tips or suggestions.
Second step, I revise “Step 1” by putting what I previously wrote at the bottom of the page and rewriting the scene from the beginning with good sentence structure and grammar. I also write more and give it more meat, like dialogue, and so on. I try not to do research or leave the page, so I don’t get distracted online. I highlight wrongly spelled words and give my future self ideas and directions to follow, like (think of a clothing style or describe the weather, etc.).
Third step, I ask myself questions about the themes, character development, and other important things, so I add more dialogue, world-building, and character development to this spiral. In this step, I do more research. Look for story ideas and think of different storylines and plotlines. I also think of an ending and outcome to help with direction. This time, I am on YouTube, watching videos about ideas or other authors' videos. Read stories, watch movies, and listen to audiobooks for ideas.
Fourth step, I repeat the first three steps and do research to write a deeper story. I don’t care about the number of chapters, which book, or the word count until I cannot control the story in a single document because of a high word count. I begin to organize into books, chapters, scenes, and even sub-scenes. I sometimes move paragraphs or scenes to different areas of the book or to a different book because they do not fit the current book’s theme, direction, or plot point. I only care about word counts to see my progress.
*** This is when Scrivener is better than Word and Google Docs. I can move the document by dragging it to another folder in Scrivener.
Every time I leave the story for a long time, or I write many scenes in the story. I do revise. I make sure everything is consistent and am aware of where inconsistencies occur so I can fix them in the future. I have tables to help me be organized.
*** Scrivener makes this process easier. The tables of characters, locations, and other items are written in the same place. This one thing: Scrivener is better than Word and Google Docs.
If I am stuck, I try to write backward, so I write the end first or start a new project in the same series because it helps me understand where the story is going. I write in Spiral; I don’t write in order. This is the main reason my stories take so long to write.
Fifth Step,When I finish the main story, I edit with Grammarly and ProWritingAid to make sure my grammar is correct and to show me where my errors are.
*I never used AI to help me with the creative side. I never use AI to help me write a whole paragraph or scene, anything like that, in my book. (I used Grammarly and ProWritingAid before the AI. I have been using it since 2016.) I also want to make sure my book level is about grades 5-7. I don’t want to be hard to read or childish, so this is another reason I use ProWritingAid. I love the thesaurus feature, which offers suggestions to help improve my writing.
When I feel the story is done and I cannot improve it by myself anymore. I will hire professional editors and beta readers to give me suggestions and to find the errors in my book. I go over their suggestions.
After I fix my book, I edit again with Grammarly and ProWritingAid to make sure my grammar is correct and to show me where my errors are. Repeat Step 5 until I feel the book is perfect. Sometimes I change a major part while editing, so I like to have another set of eyes look at it.