My Actual Writing Process (Not the Romantic Version)

My Actual Writing Process (Not the Romantic Version)

There is no candlelit desk. No perfect routine. No soft blanky. No sudden inspiration where everything suddenly makes sense.

There is coffee. Half-formed sentences. Arguing with fictional people. Deleting good paragraphs. Pretending I meant to do that all along. Tons of sticky notes and notebooks. A thousand interruptions from my children. Loud music blasting either from my AirPods or JBL Speakers. And a whole lot of smoke breaks on the balcony.

This is the part no one posts about.

My writing process doesn’t begin with confidence. It begins with curiosity. With an idea that feels interesting but fragile. With a question, I’m not sure I know how to answer yet. I don’t sit down knowing the story. I sit down, willing to discover it.

And very often, I treat a story like a murder case in reverse.

Most of the time, I know the ending, or at least the emotional truth of it. I know what must happen. I know what will break. I know what will cost the most. And then I walk backward, step by step, asking how the story could possibly arrive there.

Other times, it starts with something small. A moment. A line. A thought. And I start building around it, asking how it could grow into a full story.

Either way, I never begin with a neat structure. I begin with obsession.

And always, without exception, I have at least one notebook filled from first page to last. One hundred pages of handwriting, crossed-out thoughts, arrows, questions, scenes, fragments, timelines, and chaos. I love writing on paper. I love the mess of it. The physical proof that something is forming.

It probably looks unhinged. I'm okay with that.

But... that notebook is where the puzzle starts making sense.

I love that part. The ideas. The connections. The moment when two unrelated details suddenly click into place. The feeling of building something that didn’t exist before. That part is thrilling. Addictive.

The actual writing, though? Different story. The actual writing is another kind of hell.

I have to translate that beautiful chaos into a book-worthy manuscript. I have to make emotion precise. I have to choose one word when ten are on my mind. I have to decide what stays and what goes.

That’s where the romance disappears.

I write in pieces. Out of order. Scenes before chapters. Endings before middles. Dialogue before context. I don’t believe stories arrive in sequence. They come in moments. And I collect those moments until they start belonging together.

The first draft is never beautiful. It’s functional. It exists so I can see what the story might become. I don’t write it to be elegant. I write it for honesty. I let scenes feel unfinished. I let myself write things I’ll later delete. The first draft is not the book. It’s the "conversation" with the book.

My process includes a lot of deleting. Not because the writing is bad (not always, at least), but because the story is becoming clearer. Cutting is not a loss. It’s refinement. It’s choosing the version that I like.

I also rewrite more than I write. I move paragraphs. I shift tone. I change perspective. I argue with my earlier self and sometimes admit she was right or... wrong. And then I argue again.

There are days when I love the story. There are days when I think it's sh**. Both of those days are part of the same process.

The romantic version of writing suggests that inspiration is constant and clarity is natural. The real version is messy.

But showing up even when you don’t feel talented, trusting that the reader will forgive your imperfect sentences, believing that something meaningful can grow out of it... that's what matters.

My writing process is not about discipline. It’s about believing in myself and my stories, and, most importantly, loving what I do, no matter how many other people will.

And in the end, my writing process is simple.

I sit down.

I begin.

I don’t know where it will lead.

And I let it.