do you plan your stories out? or do you just start writing?

The NaNo community will call this "planning" vs "pantsing," aka flying by the seat of your pants. For a long time, I thought planning was the only way to go, the only way for success. You only know how to get there if you've planned out your route, right? Nobody in America would even think about getting in their car without checking Google Maps first. So I would completely build the world from the ground up and make meticulous notes on every chapter. This is REALLY helpful for when you're writing a novel in a month, because you can't waste time thinking about where you're going next.

But I'm finding it's not necessarily always the best for me. Maybe all I need is a little planning, and seeing where things take me. A long time ago (like two or three lifetimes ago), I wrote an entire book by soliciting ideas from others. I would post a chapter, then they would tell me what would happen next, and I'd have to write it. I enjoyed the challenge, and it produced a novel that everybody loved. I had a similar idea for how 'kicks' could be, so while I have a rough idea of how to get from point A to point B, I don't know the specifics. And that's a great distraction during a quarantine, to be honest. I'm currently planning a much bigger project like that.

So yeah, I definitely plan. What level of planning I do varies on whether my book is an "easy slot" or a "hard slot." 'kicks' goes under "easy slot" -- the chapters are short, perfect for Wattpad, and it keeps me on my toes so I'm always wanting to write more. "Hard slot" books are ones I have to sit down and focus on, like my "Great BTS Novel" or my Magnificat series. These are usually completed before I publish them, whereas 'kicks' is post as you go, with a buffer.

what environment works best for you when writing?

Being outside, actually! I'm one of those writers who loves a good coffee shop. I will hole up in a Starbucks or a Panera for hours and write. (My soul is crying right now.) When I'm outside of my house, I can't be distracted by other things, and I can solely focus on the book in front of me. Also, because I got out of the house, I'm able to trick my brain into thinking I'm being productive, which quiets my anxiety for a while. Plus coffee. Because coffee. Insert like 10 bajillion pictures of Suga and coffee.

what equipment do you use?

The good thing about writing is that it can be done anywhere, nearly any time, using a variety of methods. Communication is so key to being a human, and writing is part of that. Thankfully after years and years of writing, I've streamlined my process a good bit.

I do all of my first drafts in Google Drive. This is because I write just about anywhere. I've written on subway cars before, at work, in coffee shops. I even wrote most of a GBN chapter while in an urgent care waiting room. Because I do everything on Google Drive, I can write from anywhere, and it will be automatically saved. I only do this with writing, not any of my other creative pursuits :P

When I am on the go, I take my iPad and a full size keyboard. I can tether to my phone if need be, or I can write offline and it will update later. When I'm at home, I sit at my desktop. Yes, I have one of those. I run off a 2014 iMac that is slightly outdated, but still works fine for the most part (especially for writing). Side note: I do most of my reading on my iPhone on the mobile app, but all of my uploading and most of my messaging comes straight from my desktop.

Once my first drafts are done, if I'm set on publishing I pull everything into OpenOffice and format and edit. In addition, I do all of my covers in Photoshop. They probably don't look as slick as the ones made in apps, but they're still my covers, and I work hard on them. So I'm proud of them in my own way.

do you listen to music?

I often don't, because music distracts me. I cannot work on a book and sing Converse High at the same time. I've historically had white noise on, but my white noise generator switched from a free model to pay-per-month, and I can no longer recommend them. I can still use their app for free on the go, but writing at home during the coronacrazy has presented a challenge. So I've either been listening to nondescript EDM music (Secret Sky was perfect for this), or quite frankly? I listen to Koya's sleep music from BT21. I first used that as a distraction during a certain chapter of my GBN, and now, when I listen to the music, all I can think about is writing. It puts me directly in the mood.