Every so often YouTube remembers that I'm a writer and starts throwing random writing advice channels at me. Lately, and annoyingly, it's been people shilling AI writing (a can of worms I am notgoing to open here, but in brief: no, I never use AI, and we'll leave it at that). But this one actually caught my attention. It's a video essay discussing how Stephen King is such a prolific writer, including video clips of the author himself discussing his process, and, shockingly? Me too.

Here's the video (opens in a new tab) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNaKe1CEXw

But the main bullet points are:

• He starts with a simple idea and let the story tell itself
• He doesn't plot out the entire novel ahead of time (to quote King himself, "Life isn't full of plots"
• When he sits down to write, he always goes back to reread what he's previously written to get back into the "self hypnosis" mindset, or what I just always called getting into the zone

Is this "the" defacto way to write? Good God, no. I am neurodivergent as hell, and this is what I found works for me. I just find it deeply fascinating that it apparently works for one of my personal novelist heroes as well. What's even more amusing to me is that I once fed a sample of my writing into an app that said it could analyze my writing style and tell me who I most wrote like. And, if you guessed it said "Stephen King" you would be correct! I can't find that app now, but will continue to look for it. It was pre-AI by several years (I want to say around 2014 or 2015) so it may just be lost to the sands of time by this point.

While I'm on the subject though, if you made it this far into my silly flight of fancy then, please let me say "thank you" by letting you know I'm working on a new novel to kind of replace what was lost with the Dark Kitten incident. The tentative working title right now is just a generic "Summer of Rock" but, as the story has developed more, I'm thinking of changing it to "Return to Alpine Springs" as more of a meta-title for fans who know what that means, without alienating people who never got the chance to read the original Becoming Robin series.

I'm really trying to take everything that I've learned over the last 14 or so years (Good. God.) and produce something in the same cozy fiction vein as Robin, without going too dark while also acknowledging the current political landscape.

TJ is 15, and coming to terms with being transgender and what that means in 202x (Probably 2023/2024), as well as navigating just the general hellscape that is being a teenager these days. Gen Alpha got recked by the pandemic, and I'm having fun exploring how that affected them as they're coming of age compared to older gen Z or even millennials.

But I don't want to say too much more as this is, again, very much a work in progress, and I'm only up to chapter 5. But, suffice to say a number of legacy characters will be returning as support characters!

Anyway, good vibes, and happy reading! <3

PS: If you sent me a PM and I haven't responded, I'm not ignoring you. I just have to reiterate that I am neruodivergent as hell, including a huge dose of ADHD, that, I think has actually gotten worse after someone exposed me to COVID back in 2021 >_> Sorry! I WILL try to get to thhose today or tomorrow. If you need to reach me sooner, I'm on discord @ScaerieTale and part of the BCTS Discord channel. Just ask Piper, Cat, or Erin to yell at me if all else fails. lol