Guest Blog: Clarissa Yip

Once again, we welcome author Clarissa Yip who is on tour promoting her latest novellas: Tempting a Prince, Silent Night's Seduction, and Once Chance.  Welcome Clarissa!

Clarissa Writes:

One of my writing quirks…

BICHOK- Butt in Chair. Hands on Keyboard.

I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase often enough if you’re a writer. Well, if you’re a reader, then you just learned something new!

BICHOK isn’t a phrase that I take easily. It’s really hard for me to focus on things, especially when I have a million things to do. You should seriously see my to-do list. It’s quite scary. Without it, I would be confused, disoriented, and even more scattered without my day planner.

I have a calendar on every device you could possibly think of, and it all has to sync. Color-coded. But before I can actually start writing and doing my BICHOK thing, I have to have paper…and color pens. If they have sparkles and glitter, even better! I love making lists. I love plotting on paper the old fashioned way. I know I could type it all up and save it in nifty folders on my computer, but I find that I enjoy writing out ideas with colorful pens then stuffing the colorful sheets of papers in their correct folders, so I don’t lose anything.

Each of my heroes and heroines are assigned a color then they go into the correct color folder also. So any notes that are made, has to have the right color. Or I would have to write it over in the right color later.  

Even my folders and calendars on my computers are color-labeled. Everything gets assigned a color label. If they were colored wrong, I would be confused.

So when I’m actually writing a story, it gets assigned a specific color that coordinates with the color of the pub that I’m aiming for it to go to. Just so I don’t get confused.

My character/GMC white boards are all color-coded. Have I told you I love color markers? With glitter?

I guess I shouldn’t talk about my color-coded spreadsheets then, huh? So before I can do anything BICHOK, my colors have to be in the right place. My notes have to have been color labeled and written in the correct color before I can actually start writing. Think I’m weird? I’m sure there are crazier people out there than me!

So, what about you? What are your writing quirks?