Firstly – very happy new year to one and all. I hope this year brings everyone the cheer and success they are searching for.
As you can see from the flier above, my new book Body Language is almost set for release, with the handsome young cover boy from Bedtime Stories making a return appearance. I’ll be posting further details about the new collection over the coming days. The book is in the very final stages of formatting and due for a release on all digital formats on Friday 27th January. Writing a novel requires a far greater degree of discipline and planning. I know there are still a lot of writers who like to the find their novel in the writing process, not really knowing where it is going or how it will end when they begin. I’m not one of them. Before I start writing a lengthy peace like a novel, I need to have a detailed synopsis (around five or six pages) written in advance, together with a full character list and notes for all of the major characters. I like to think of it as setting out on a journey with a map. I might change my route along the way, but I know in advance where I am going and roughly how I am going to get there. If I need to do any research then it becomes apparent at this stage and I factor it into my pre-work.
I’m rather old fashioned in the way I write these days. I like to do my first draft in long hand in a hardback note book, sitting at the kitchen table with some music playing. I’ll write for about an hour, or however long it takes to until I’ve written three pages then take a short break, before sitting back down to write another three pages. Once I’ve written my daily target of six pages, I start to type up my hand written draft, revising the text as I go. A lot of writers would argue that it’s quicker to type the first draft directly into a word processing programme but for me, the writing is in the pen and paper draft; that’s when I get time to think and really get into the scene.
We all have our own routines and methods of getting the work done.
Thom X
