the writing process | the blog for ForesightYourCtPsychic

For more information on Catherine’s books, “Adventures in Palmistry”, “The Practical Empath – Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath”, “Manifesting Something Better” ,“The Psychic Power of Your Dreams”, her urban fantasy “The Lands That Lie Between”, and her new book “Magick for Pennies”, all from Foresight Publications, click here

The Writing Process- Come Together

Posted in Writing, tagged "Adventures in Palmistry", "Magick for Pennies: Affordable Metaphysics for Everyone", "The Lands That Lie Between", "The Psychic Power of Your Dreams", Catherine, Foresight Publications, Manifesting Something Better, The Practical Empath- Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath, the writing process, writing on March 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

You’ve got your topic (The Writing Process- Ideas, Ideas)

You’ve brainstormed the points you want to make about it (The Writing Process- Gather Up Everything)

You’ve put your points in order (The Writing Process-Lets Get Organized)

You’ve thought about how you want to write (The Writing Process- Time Traveller)

You’ve set up your blank manuscript (The Writing Process- Size Matters)

And now it’s time to bring all of these steps together before you start writing.

Here’s what I do.

I take my rough outline, with the individual points listed under each heading, copy it and plug it into my blank manuscript, to give me a framework for doing the actual writing.
I’ll include pages labelled “Title”, “Dedication”, “Table of Contents”, and so on as place holders for things I need to put in later.
I’ll change the lettering of this framework in some fashion (make it italic, make the lettering red, or do something else to make it easy to see the difference between the framework and the actual writing.)
I’ll number the pages so I can get a feel for how long the manuscript is as I go along.
I’ll space the chapters so they all start on odd numbered (right hand) pages, once again to get a feel for the finished length.

And then I’m ready to start writing.

Building this framework is an optional step, and you may not want to do it. I find it very helpful, though. Having the framework makes it easier for me to write the actual work, helps me remember important points, and keeps me on track, which makes me write better.

Time to write

Catherine

Foresight

3/3/15

The Writing Process- Size Matters

Posted in Foresight Publications, Writing, tagged "Adventures in Palmistry", "Magick for Pennies: Affordable Metaphysics for Everyone", "The Lands That Lie Between", "The Psychic Power of Your Dreams", Catherine, Foresight, Foresight Publications, formatting, Manifesting Something Better, The Practical Empath- Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath, the writing process, writing on February 24, 2015| 1 Comment »

The next question is “Do you know what size you want your book to be?”

There are some things I didn’t realize about books until I started self publishing, but they’re things that you’re gonna want to know if you want to bring out a book that looks professional.

1) Chapters always start on a right hand page and end on a left handed one.

This doesn’t mean that you write totally based on whether you’re bringing out a paperback, a trade paperback, a hard cover or something else. It does mean that, as you’re writing, it’s good how your work will look when you’re finished. If you end a chapter on a left hand page, you’re gonna want to leave a blank page ad start the next chapter on the next left handed one. If you end up with one or two words overlapping onto that left hand page, you may want to take a look at your writing to see if a different word, phrase or word over will avoid that awkward overlap.

2) When you’re self publishing, many printers charge by the page.

This means that you want to write the book you want to write, but you don’t want waste pages (such as the two word left page overlap, which will leave you paying for two extra pages.)

For these reasons, and more, it’s a good idea to write your book on the page size you expect to publish on.

Set the pages on your word processor for the size of your book
Consult your print on demand company for their recommendations for margin sizes

You may choose to skip this step, but I find that it lets me see how my book will look as I write it, and saves me a lot of time and trouble when I get to editing and formatting

What size of book are you thinking about writing?….

Catherine

Foresight

2/24/15

The Writing Process- Time Traveller

Posted in Foresight Publications, Writing, tagged "Adventures in Palmistry", "Magick for Pennies: Affordable Metaphysics for Everyone", "The Lands That Lie Between", "The Psychic Power of Your Dreams", Catherine, Foresight, Foresight Publications, Manifesting Something Better, The Practical Empath- Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath, the writing process, writing on February 19, 2015| 1 Comment »

You’ve got your topic. You’ve got a basic idea of the different points that you want to cover. You’ve put those points in some kind of order, keeping in mind that you can add or subtract points or change the order later on if it makes more sense.

Good stuff. That’s a good beginning.

Now sit back, look at what you’ve done so far, and take a moment to think about how you want to write it.

Some people are linear writers. To paraphrase the Red Queen, they start at the beginning, go to the end and then stop.

Other people jump around. They get a lot more energy and motivation by working on the part of the book that’s speaking to them right now, and then pulling all of the lovely pieces together at the end.

Either of these is a legitimate method.

I used to be more linear, but as time has gone on, I’ve found that I really do best by building the framework for my book (as we’ve done up to now), writing what parts of the book speak to me on a particular day and plugging it into that framework. Because I did my framework first, I know what I want to cover in any particular chapter, what points came before and after (so that I can build on things that came earlier in the book) and where I’m going with the whole thing so that I can steer true towards the book’s conclusion. At the end of the process, I will have to do a read through to make sure that everything got in and that the writing flows smoothly from one point to the next, as part of my initial edit, but that’s a small price to pay for having more energy, excitement and fun as I write.

I write out of order. What kind of writer are you- linear or time traveller?

Catherine

Foresight

2/19/15

The Writing Process- Lets Get Organized

Posted in Foresight Publications, Writing, tagged "Adventures in Palmistry", "Magick for Pennies: Affordable Metaphysics for Everyone", "The Lands That Lie Between", "The Psychic Power of Your Dreams", Catherine, Foresight, Foresight Publications, Manifesting Something Better, organized, The Practical Empath- Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath, the writing process, writing on February 10, 2015| 1 Comment »

In my last post on the writing process (The Writing Process- Gather Up Everything), I talked about taking all of the different pieces of information that you might want to include in your book and putting them down in one place. Thoughts, links, examples, funny stories- all in one document so you’ve got them all in front of you. I do this so that I don’t lose track of something- so a year later I’m not slapping my forehead and saying “I wish that I’d included that story!”

You’ve got your information all gathered together. The next step is to put it into some rough kind of order.

Stop and think about a logical order first. If you’re writing fiction, are there some events that have to come before others? If you’re writing non-fiction, are there some facts that build on others?

Think about the flow of the book. What’s the best way to tell your reader things so that they’re clear/ understandable/enjoyable? Do you need to use order to build tension or to only reveal information step by step?

Once I’ve got a feel for my book, I’ll write a rough outline of how I want it to go, and then I’ll start cut and pasting the different points to where they seem to fit in the outline

Keep in mind that you can always change the order later on, both during the planning process and when you’re writing the book. If you have a new insight and things need to line up differently, just cut that section of your book and paste it into its new home

A base structure like this will make your book make more sense, and make sure that you remember everything you wanted to include once you’re writing.

Catherine

Foresight

2/10/15

The Writing Process- Gather Up Everything

Posted in Foresight Publications, tagged "Adventures in Palmistry", "Magick for Pennies: Affordable Metaphysics for Everyone", "The Lands That Lie Between", Catherine, Foresight, Foresight Publications, Manifesting Something Better, The Practical Empath- Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath, the writing process, what do you want to say?, writing on February 3, 2015| 1 Comment »

In my last writing process post, I talked about different ways to chose a topic (The Writing Process- Ideas, Ideas).

The next step- now that you have a topic, what do you want to say about it?

Some people mull it over and get the book clear in their heads before committing it to paper or their computers. Some people will brainstorm or use a process such as mind mapping to get all of their points out in front of them. (A mind map is a way of developing and capturing ideas using a picture based diagram. It taps into both sides of the brain and is kinda fun. For more information, check out this article.)

When I’m in the initial stages of writing a book, I’ll save a blank doc under the working title of the book. Once that’s done, I write down a quick phrase for every point that I think I might possibly want to include in the book. I don’t bother to evaluate them or put them in order yet- the objective is to capture every thought that might belong in it so I don’t miss something. I may take several days to mull the topic over and add points to the document, working on it at different times of day and different levels of energy/tiredness.

This not only captures all possible points but also gives me an idea of whether there’s enough material in this topic for a book or not, and whether I might need to widen the topic, or focus it to a tighter one

More coming

Catherine

Foresight

2/3/15

The Writing Process – Ideas, Ideas

Posted in Writing, tagged "Adventures in Palmistry", "Magick for Pennies: Affordable Metaphysics for Everyone", "The Lands That Lie Between", "The Psychic Power of Your Dreams", Catherine, Foresight Publications, Manifesting Something Better, The Practical Empath- Surviving and Thriving as a Psychic Empath, the writing process, writing on January 29, 2015| 2 Comments »

Going to write a book? The first step is to decide what you’re going to write about.

Something you love and know a lot about?
Something you’d like to learn more about?
Something you’ve been assigned to write?
Something you’ve pitched and have a contract to write about?
Something you think there might be a need for?
Something you think there might be a market for?
Something that might make you more of an authority in your field?
Something that might support your other goals?
A story you have to tell?

There’s lots of good reasons to write an article or a book (including just for the experience or the fun of it)

People choose their topics in different ways. Some choose something they already know about, to get their info out to the world. Some choose a topic they feel there is a need for. Some will check what’s trending or seems likely to trend in the next 6 months, and write a book that they think there will be a market for.

When I’m choosing a topic, I go a little different route. For my metaphysical books, I usually look for something I know that there seems to be a need for. I have a list of possible topics perculating in my brain, and I mull them over.

The deciding factor, though, tends to be the signs that come to me.

(*insert spooky music here*) Sounds pretty dramatic, but it’s not quite like that. It’s more a question of paying attention. When I’m getting ready to start a new book, I’ll find people will start mentioning a particular challenge more frequently when I’m doing readings. I’ll see more references to it online. I’ll have people ask me to teach classes or give them everything I know about “X” in an email message

When I see this happening, the Universe is telling me that there’s a need- and so I write.

How do you choose what you’re going to write about?

Catherine

Foresight

1/29/15