Writing Process or How I Manage to Get Books Written Despite Procrastination and Book Hopping

I try to write something every day, whether it's a few chapters or a few sentences. Though, there have been times when I haven't written a single word for a month. I don't like those times, but they happen. Typically, I'll work on two or three books at a time. At the moment, I'm working on four, one being nearly ready for editing. It's not hard to see why I've only had one book published in the 13 years I've been writing. I have a hard time sticking to one project and getting it done before moving on to something else. My brain doesn't work that way. When I have an idea for a particular story, I have to get it written down soon or I'll forget. Then I'll jump to another book. This process doesn't really bother me. I like being immersed in different worlds with different characters all at once. I'm not a very social person, so I guess you could say these characters are like friends of mine. Wow. Lame-o. I'm not a complete dork, but near enough.

I prefer writing in first person, present tense, usually with a female lead. I'm a girl, so it comes pretty naturally. I do have one story that is third person present, because I needed to use the point of view of several characters throughout the story. Giving a voice to more than one character is enjoyable and gives me more than one way to tell a certain part of the story, depending on whose point of view I use. If I don't like the way a character's point of view is going, I can always give another character the chance to lead.

The way I come up with story ideas is kind of bizarre. A word or two can come to my mind and quickly turn into an idea. I also dream strange things and in the morning I think to myself, "If I change this or that, it could be a cool story." I also get ideas from TV, movies, and other books, but always with my own ideas mixed in. Sometimes coming up with stories is almost more fun than writing them. I have about two hundred story outlines, so I'm going to be busy for a long time. Good thing it's something I love to do!