How We Work

Cat Fisher

I don't know a single writer who is so set in her ways that she will never try anything different. This is especially true when an author starts out on a new project that is unlike most of what she may have already written.

A couple years ago I wrote a book called Muse. It is a comedic mystery novel, and this presented problems for my less than logical brain processes. I had to work out the clues, the answers, the steps... not just an outline of events, which I often do, but a new approach to the 'why' questions of the book. The hows, and wheres, and what really happened....

I think I did a good job. The book has only been out once in submission (my bad) and I was told that the writing was excellent but the start too slow. I've been editing that opening again and trying to interject a little more excitement into those few moments when my MC realizes he's stuck in the middle of nowhere with a dead car and a massive storm blowing in around him.

I had never written anything like Muse before. I hope to write more like it again.

But (getting back to the topic at hand) it was not at all like writing, say, Glory. Glory is a near future, post apocalyptic fantasy novel. It's almost the world as we know it. You can recognize our world, but things have changed. The events are straightforward, the enemy clear from the opening. Different approach. Far different work in research.

There is more to writing than sitting down and doing the writing itself. We all know it. Ideas, approach, research, editing, market research, editing some more...

I think this is one of the great things about writing, in fact. There is no 'sameness' to it. What I do today is not the same as what I will do tomorrow.

It's a great life!