Guest Post!
Writing Process
When I started writing The Woodlands there was no slip of a concept that it would be a book. I had the simple idea, what if you woke up pregnant and didn’t know how it had happened?
There was no plot outline, or even an idea that it would be a book. I wrote the whole story around the one scene where Rosa was surrounded by creepy doctors in a sterile, stale environment, that ended up being right in the middle. I wrote that scene first then the first chapter and then went back to writing from the middle of the book again. I wrote back and forth until I caught up to the middle and then wrote the last quarter.
I know it sounds very confusing and it was for a while but it gave me a good idea of where I wanted the story to go since I already had a pivotal scene to aim for.
I was a woman possessed, ignoring the three children tugging at my arms and then pulling my wheeled chair away from the computer, screaming ‘feed me!” I completed the first draft for The Woodlands in eight weeks. The bath overflowed several times, pasta was often over cooked and the kids watched way too much TV in that time but at the end of it I had this massive stack of paper. A book 320 pages long.
I handed it to my sister nervously and waited for her to read it, making her send me texts after she’d finished every chapter. She finished it, she loved it, and I thought, ‘ok, I’ve written a book. I guess I should get it published.’
I wish I had known more about the publishing industry before I tackled it. I knew it was a rough draft but I thought that’s what editors were for. I didn’t realize my manuscript needed to be polished and perfect before I sent it off. So of course, what followed were several rejections. But I was lucky, I wasn’t getting form rejections, I was getting the ones that said ‘your writing has potential you just need to work on dot, dot, dot…’
After devastation came the realization that personal rejections were unusual and that this was good sign. I took the criticisms I was offered and set about revising my manuscript, expanding my first chapter out over four, adding dialogue and fixing up plot points. Doing this word-by-word polish was tedious at times but gained me an intimate relationship with my characters and my writing. But I still start sentences with ‘but’ and I still forget where the commas go!
Do you dare enter the Woodlands?
As the last livable spot on Earth, it’s the only home Rosa and Joseph have ever known. But now they need to escape, or Rosa will be trapped forever in a horrific government program. A dystopian page-turner with over 750 five-star ratings on Goodreads. The Woodlands Series is perfect for fans of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth, and The Jewel Series by Amy Ewing. Readers can purchase this boxed set at a significant discount over the cost to purchase each novel individually. This is a complete series boxed set.
The Woodlands is an Award-Winning Finalist in the “Fiction: Young Adult” category of the USA Best Book Awards, as well as a Semifinalist in The Kindle Book Awards by the Kindle Book Review.
“Lauren Taylor’s writing is powerfully descriptive; she is a master of words and similes.” – Author Erica Kiefer
“It seems so rare these days to find a dystopian with an original vein in it. The Woodlands Succeeds.” -Author Pauline Creeden
“I went into this story with my own ideas, but they were obliterated by what I found instead. I was so happy to be wrong because this story touched my heart deeply in a way that I never expected.” – Reviewer Amber Douglas Mcallister
“This book was fantastic! Spectacular! It had everything I look for in a book: Action, Adventure, and even romance!” – Reviewer Jocelyn Sanchez
As the last livable spot on Earth, it’s the only home Rosa and Joseph have ever known. But now they need to escape, or Rosa will be trapped forever in a horrific government program. A dystopian page-turner with over 750 five-star ratings on Goodreads. The Woodlands Series is perfect for fans of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth, and The Jewel Series by Amy Ewing. Readers can purchase this boxed set at a significant discount over the cost to purchase each novel individually. This is a complete series boxed set.
The Woodlands is an Award-Winning Finalist in the “Fiction: Young Adult” category of the USA Best Book Awards, as well as a Semifinalist in The Kindle Book Awards by the Kindle Book Review.
“Lauren Taylor’s writing is powerfully descriptive; she is a master of words and similes.” – Author Erica Kiefer
“It seems so rare these days to find a dystopian with an original vein in it. The Woodlands Succeeds.” -Author Pauline Creeden
“I went into this story with my own ideas, but they were obliterated by what I found instead. I was so happy to be wrong because this story touched my heart deeply in a way that I never expected.” – Reviewer Amber Douglas Mcallister
“This book was fantastic! Spectacular! It had everything I look for in a book: Action, Adventure, and even romance!” – Reviewer Jocelyn Sanchez
Author bio:
Lauren Nicolle Taylor lives in the lush Adelaide Hills. The daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist and an Australian scientist, she was expected to follow a science career path, attending Adelaide University and completing a Health Science degree with Honours in obstetrics and gynaecology.
She then worked in health research for a short time before having her first child. Due to their extensive health issues, Lauren spent her twenties as a full-time mother/carer to her three children. When her family life settled down, she turned to writing.
She is a 2014 Kindle Book Awards Semi-finalist and a USA Best Book Awards Finalist.
Lauren Nicolle Taylor lives in the lush Adelaide Hills. The daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist and an Australian scientist, she was expected to follow a science career path, attending Adelaide University and completing a Health Science degree with Honours in obstetrics and gynaecology.
She then worked in health research for a short time before having her first child. Due to their extensive health issues, Lauren spent her twenties as a full-time mother/carer to her three children. When her family life settled down, she turned to writing.
She is a 2014 Kindle Book Awards Semi-finalist and a USA Best Book Awards Finalist.
Giveaway!
No comments:
Post a Comment