How I Write Novels (Not Prettily)

I begin with a snatch. Wait, not that. I begin with a quick scene idea. For example, Courting Her began with this:

 

"Why didn't you put your feet down when I said?" After Alex takes his feet down from the coffee table not quite swiftly enough to satisfy Kimberly.

 

Protege Mistress started as a short story about a man losing a bet to his shift manager and having to kiss her feet, but the novel began when that short story ended with this:

 

"Good boy. See you at work."

 

From there I'm thinking about the story more than I'm writing the story. I consider and discard directions the story might go in. I'm either writing that initial scene or I'm still writing something else, but that novel idea is growing on some level, not subconsciously but close to that. Those nearly subconscious ideas start to bulge and I begin to feel a pressing urge to get them down on paper, like needing to pee, but I never outline. I probably should but I never do. I jot notes, usually in the form of dialogue, of future scenes, (finding them later is always a bitch) but I keep these story ideas circulating in my head, and it's the fear of losing them all, along with perseverance and dedication and all those noble adjectives other writers possess, that is the main thing that motivates my daily writing.

 

I'm nearing completion of my eighth book, and I just figured out that this is my process, it's kind of a mess. And I'm sure I'm coming off like I'm trying to sound like a creative genius, inventing in a cave instead of a lab, all that. Maybe. There is a romantic element to not outlining and "just being" as a writer. I'm aware it's bullshit. All writers do the same thing. All books are written twice. Once for the authors and once to show potential readers what the authors showed themselves. There are as many ways to accomplish that as there are books that have ever been written. Authors are just people who became obsessed with an idea for a story and do what people who are obsessed do. Authors are nothing special; books are special.