Today, it's my pleasure to welcome Giulia Skye, with a guest post about her writing process and her debut novel, Her Outback Driver.
Over to Guilia ...
Making Sense of Chaos
Giulia Skye
Have you ever disturbed a trail of ants and watched the ensuing chaos? The once uniform line turns into a mass of scattered dots, patches here and there that have no shape or pattern, then after a few minutes of reordering, the ants fall into line again, the trail restored into a seamless flowing line. Every ant slotting into place.
This pretty much sums up my writing process! That uniform line of ants is the germ of my story idea. It’s neat, tidy and making oh-so-much sense in my head – until I disturb it by writing it down. It then turns into a mass of scattered sentences and frantic scenes that make absolutely no sense. It’s a mess!
The once uniform line is such a distant memory that I lose sight of it. There are so many lose threads and options. Which way do I turn? I scrabble around trying to find direction until, somehow, I begin to detect a flow. The scattered sentences and frantic scenes eventually fall in to line. And, slowly, so does everything else.
Very slowly indeed!
Ants reform their orderly trail within seconds and wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all write novels that quickly?
Her Outback Driver is my first completed novel and I learnt so much about myself as a writer during the countless hours I spent sitting at my desk writing it.
Firstly, I’m not a detailed plotter. I play about with scene ideas in my head, mulling them over until they stick. Secondly, I can’t move on to the next scene or chapter without getting the previous scene to a level I’m happy with. There’s a lot of going back and forth. And thirdly, because I write character driven romances, I discovered that I’ve got to know my characters really well before the story can properly take shape. So much of the plot and action depends on how they react to whatever I throw at them.
One thing that I really noticed while writing Her Outback Driver was how much all the writing tips and advice I’d absorbed over the years was actually true. Phrases like “writing is re-writing”, “write the book you’d like to read”, and “things are so because characters are so” really made sense. I was so encouraged by such advice that I put together a Behind the Scenes look at the making of the novel, in which I highlight my favourite writing tips and how they helped me. It’s geared towards giving new writers like me an example of someone’s writing process and is available via my website when readers subscribe to my newsletter. It also contains my terrible first drafts! It was quite nerve wracking exposing these but I honestly believe that if I had seen examples of other writers’ first drafts when I first started writing myself, it would have helped me gain a better understanding of the writing process – in particular, that words don’t magically spill out of a writer’s brain and on to the page in a uniform line of perfect prose!
Thanks so much, Giulia, for giving us an insight into your writing process and your writing life.
When former Olympic Swimmer, Michael Adams—now reluctantly Canada’s hottest reality TV star— insults his fake showbiz wife on social media, he escapes the ensuing scandal and jumps on the first flight to Australia. Desperate to experience ordinary life again—if only for a few weeks—he becomes “Adam”, just another tourist traveling through the Outback. But with a reward out for his safe return and his fame’s nasty habit of catching up with him when he least expects, he needs a disguise… and he’s just found it.
Sweet and scruffy British backpacker, Evie Blake, is taking a year out of her busy London life. Tired of lies and liars, she’s looking for adventure to heal her broken heart. So when the hot Canadian she meets at the campground offers to be her travel partner through Western Australia’s wild Kimberley region, she grabs the chance, unaware he’s got the world out looking for him.
He’s just a down-on-his-luck traveler, right?
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To connect with Giulia Skye:
On Bookbub - https://www.bookbub.com/authors/giulia-skye
On Twitter - @GiuliaSkye
On Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/giuliaskye
Italian-born Giulia Skye spent her childhood watching classic Hollywood films and thinking up her own romantic stories. After two decades working in TV production, she knew turning those stories into novels would be much more enjoyable - and far cheaper – than turning them into films. She still keeps her hand in TV production but is at her happiest being a stay-at-home mum, spending time with her family, growing her own vegetables, and conjuring up sizzling stories about sexy heroes meeting feisty heroines who aren’t always as they at first appear. Her Outback Driver is her first novel, Book 1 of her “Take a Holiday” series.