Welcome to my blog – thanks for reading. I must admit that I’m as surprised as anyone to find myself with a blog. And a website promoting a novel that is still being written. Why am I doing this (I ask myself)? There are a few reasons, but I think the main one is:
I’m hoping that presenting the writing process in such a public way will keep me accountable and on track, as well as providing a useful record to me and any others interested in the process of wrestling a story onto the page, what the end-to-end journey really looks like.
In this blog, I’m planning to capture aspects of the writing journey that represent key learnings for me along the way, things that I’ve found useful (and not), as well as some reflections on writing-related interests of mine. My plan is to post monthly on the writing process, so that it puts some discipline on me to reflect on what I’m doing, and hopefully I’ll manage to post on another topic at least as frequently. We’ll see how that goes!
Not having attempted to write any piece of fiction on this scale before, I know that I’m going to learn a whole lot more about what is required to deliver a story that I’m happy to share with the world. As I write this post, my first draft is at around 118,000 words. I’ve probably got another 20,000 or so to go. Both these numbers are daunting. And I know that once I manage to work out the twists and turns that get me to the final scene (already written), that’s only the start of it.
The photo above is where I’ve been writing this year. One of the upsides of Covid (to the extent there have been any…) is that I created a proper workplace for myself in my study, where I’ve been doing my day job since March 2020. The setup shows the essentials I need for writing – a screen, a keyboard, and a notebook to capture thoughts on the story as they come to me (and ok, yes, that’s a bottle of whisky off to the side…).
In looking at how little is needed to be able to write, the first lesson I’ve taken away from the novel-writing process so far is a simple one, and not particularly profound, but is true, and has always been true for anyone who picked up a quill, used a manual typewriter, or installed writing software on a laptop:
Lesson 1: At the end of the day, it’s all about putting down one word after another. Words to sentences. Sentences to paragraphs. To chapters, to story arcs, all the way up to a series of books. One word at a time, using whatever tools you have to record them. You just have to keep smashing them out. No one else can do that for you. Your fingers, your mind.
As I said, not a stunning revelation, but at this stage of the process, a critical one. Until your ideas move from half-formed thoughts in your head to something on a page or screen, you haven’t got a story, you’ve only got an ambition.
That’s it for Blog #1 – time for me to get typing!
