Plays | Rhonda Parrish

This is a blog hop. Each participant in it is meant to blog about their writing process… I’m going to be faking it a bit because, frankly, I don’t have a writing process LOL I’m getting a little ahead of myself, however. Because hop is chain/train-like in style. I was one of three writers invited by Kristina Wojtaszek to participate and I in turn invited a few writers. Kristina posted her blog last week, and the people I invited will blog next week. So the chain goes on, and on, and on… 😉 Before I start talking about myself and my, ahem, “writing process” let me tell you a little bit about Kristina, since she’s the one who invited me to play along 🙂

Kristina Wojtaszek grew up as a woodland sprite and mermaid, playing around the shores of Lake Michigan. At any given time she could be found with live snakes tangled in her hair and worn out shoes filled with sand. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Management as an excuse to spend her days lost in the woods with a book in hand. She currently resides in the high desert country of Wyoming with her husband and two small children. She is fascinated by fairy tales and fantasy and her favorite haunts are libraries and cemeteries. Follow her @KristinaWojtasz or on her blog, Twice Upon a Time.

I met Kristina when she submitted a story to Fae. A story, titled Solomon’s Friend, which I accepted. It was a pleasure to work with Kristina on edits and all the other minutiae that come with anthologies. I’ve not yet read her longer works (Kristina’s page at World Weaver Press) but Opal is on my TBR list and I liked her short story, Cinder, in the Specter Spectacular anthology from WWP.

Now, though I could keep talking about Kristina, I’m actually supposed to answer some questions about my writing process. Let’s give it a go, shall we?

1) What am I working on?

So many things. No really. Maybe that’s part of the reason I don’t have a writing process — I absolutely fail at single-tasking. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could focus on one project at a time, but that doesn’t seem to be the way my brain works. I’m pre-scheduling this blog post, so when it goes live it may not be 100% accurate, but as of the time of my writing this I am working on:

Editing the stories for A is for Apocalypse (almost done!)

Revising a Canadian apocalypse story (no where near done)

The first draft of my YA horror novel (almost done!!)

Poems for a collaborative project (spec)

Writing a ‘setting the mood’ scene for a collaborative short story (horror)

Copyediting a small collection of my reprints I’m going to self-publish.

Short story for a pen name project

Actually… that’s it for writing/editing projects which are super active right now. O_o Might be a new record, actually LoL I’ve also got a wish list of sorts of a bunch of stories I want to write, but either I haven’t quite figured them all the way out yet, or haven’t found the time to sit down and get ’em done. That list obviously doesn’t count things like Niteblade, promoting anthologies I’ve edited, paperwork, blogging challenges (I start one tomorrow), etc. etc. But it gives a pretty good idea of the files currently open on my computer.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, it’s mine, isn’t it? That sounds kind of like a lame or a smart ass answer, but it’s the best I’ve got. Everything I write is informed by what makes me, me. By my past, my present, my favourite words, my strengths, my weaknesses…

Interestingly, I think for a long time I was handicapping myself. One of the things I do best is write description, but for years I’ve been cutting it out of my work because of the idea ‘if it’s not absolutely necessary, cut it’. Which is silly, when I think about it now… but there you go.

It’s always a learning process, right? The stories I write today are going to be better than the ones I wrote yesterday. The anthologies I edit this year are likely to be stronger than the ones I edited last year… it’s just how it goes. The novel I’m working on right now is still a work in progress, and very much a first draft, but it has loads of description in it — and I love it. That’s subject to change, of course, but right now I feel like it’s the thing I’ve written which most closely shows who I am as a writer. I can’t wait to share it 😉

3) Why do I write what I do?

Two reasons, I think. First, because it’s what I would want to read, and second, because it is what interests me. I guess those things are almost the same thing… but not quite.

4) How does my writing process work?

Uh… I don’t really have one. I used to try to force myself to do things one way all the time, but that resulted in long periods where I wasn’t “blocked” but I wasn’t writing either. Now I do whatever it takes to get the words on the page.

Ideally, I prefer to write all my first drafts longhand, on my bed (the picture to the left is a pretty accurate representation of how that goes LoL). Because I type far quicker than I can write, forcing myself to slow down really helps me refine the words as they are coming out of my brain and onto the page. Afterwards, when I transcribe them from book to computer it’s an opportunity to do another edit without really editing. I let the story/poem/novel rest for a while either before or after transcription, and then it’s time to revise the hell out of it. I do most of my revisions on the computer, but when a project is super important to me I print it out and edit the hard copy, then transcribe those edits back into the computer again. I know I should do this with all my work because it produces a far better project, but honestly? My printer’s not doing so well these days and I feel bad for all the dead trees >_<

So that’s my ideal process. In reality though, like I said, I do whatever it takes to get the words out. Sometimes that means using Write or Die on kamikaze mode with a low tolerance (so it will start deleting my words if I stop writing them), sometimes I go to the university my husband teaches at and hide out in an empty room where there are no distractions and no excuses for not getting words done. Sometimes I complain on twitter for two hours about how I should be writing but I’m procrastinating instead, then I get so tired of my own whining I just shut up and write. Whatever it takes, man. That’s my process — whatever it takes.

Well, enough about me 🙂 I’ve invited a few of the other contributors to Fae to participate in this blog hop. Next week, April 7th, you’ll be able to read posts from:

Laura VanArendonk Baugh
- Laura was born at a very early age and never looked back. She overcame her childhood deficiencies of having been born without teeth and unable to walk, and by the time she matured into a recognizable adult she had become a behavior analyst, an internationally-recognized and award-winning animal trainer, a costumer/cosplayer, a chocolate addict, and of course a writer.
  Laura writes historical and fantasy works as well as non-fiction in the art and science of behavior and training. Follow her exploits at www.LauraVanArendonkBaugh.com.
Rhonda Eikamp
- Rhonda Eikamp grew up in the heart of Texas, fell in love with words and languages and moved to Germany. Her story-writing started with a Nancy Drew novel written at the age of ten, but only really took off after 1996, with stories in venues such as Space & Time and The Urbanite. Since rebooting in 2012, she has published stories in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Colored Lens and Daily Science Fiction. She lives with her husband, two daughters and a cat, and spends non-writing time translating legal texts for a German law firm or photographing the idyllic places of her youth on trips back to the States.
Beth Cato
- Beth Cato’s debut steampunk novel THE CLOCKWORK DAGGER will be released by HarperCollins Voyager in September 2014. She’s originally from Hanford, California, but now resides in Arizona with her husband and son. Her short fiction, poetry, and tasty cookie recipes can be found at http://www.bethcato.com.
L.S. Johnson
- L.S. Johnson lives in Northern California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as Corvus, Interzone, and Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. Currently she is working on a novel set in 18th century Europe. She can be found online at traversingz.com.
Alexis A. Hunter
- Alexis A. Hunter revels in the endless possibilities of speculative fiction. Short stories are her true passion, despite a few curious forays into the world of novels. Over forty of her short stories have been published, appearing recently in Kasma SF, Spark: A Creative Anthology, Read Short Fiction, and more. To learn more about Alexis visit www.idreamagain.wordpress.com.
Shannon Phillips
- Shannon Phillips lives in Oakland, where she keeps chickens, a dog, three boys, and a husband. Her first novel, The Millennial Sword, tells the story of the modern-day Lady of the Lake. Her short fiction has been featured in Dragon magazine, Rose Red Review, and the upcoming anthology Fae from World Weaver Press.

Because, go big or go home, right? 🙂 I hope you’ll pop by these ladies’ blogs next week. I certainly will be 🙂

I co-run a drama club at my daughter’s school (is co-run even a word?) and for Christmas the school wanted us to do a small play that involved some audience participation. I offered to write the script for it thinking a) it would be more fun to have a unique script rather than something pulled out of a book somewhere that had been performed thousands of times and b) it would be a fun challenge to write.

I haven’t written a script since junior high, and this script had a lot of requirements. It had to be short and simple enough for elementary school kids ranging from grade 3 to grade 6 to perform without much rehearsal (the performance is on December 20th and we only meet for 1/2 an hour a week). It had to be Christmas related and have audience participation with ‘sound effects’. The drama club has 8 students in it, so that was a consideration, plus we wouldn’t have much, if anything, in the way of props, costumes or set.

So I wrote it — and I’m remarkably happy with it. I sent it off to the teachers who are running the drama club with me, we’ll see what they have to say, but over all I’m extremely pleased with myself. I’ve got a solid plot, some funny jokes, a good message, a Christmas theme and it fits all the requirements. Plus, it builds on the skills we’ve already been teaching the kids! Yay!

It’s called Aurora, The Littlest Reindeer and I think after some fine tuning I might even send it out to a couple publishers — which will be interesting, I never thought I’d try to market a play. It was fun to write too — very freeing to be able to occasionally just tell (via stage directions) rather than having to show everything.

I’m pretty happy with myself. Now I just have to wait and see if everyone else agrees with me about it’s awesomeness 🙂

Rhonda Parrish

Category Archives: Plays

Writing Process Blog Hop

Early Christmas Present?

Aurora, The Littlest Reindeer

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.