I was raised in Blackburn, Lancashire and served for ten years in the Royal Navy before coming to Australia in 1983, after I returned from the Falklands. Writing is something I have always enjoyed and fiction was a favourite. I loved being able to write anything within the bounds of the particular subject and not be restrained by anything except my imagination. One restraint I did learn at school was other people’s perceptions of what is age appropriate for a juvenile to be writing. Apparently graphic death scenes weren’t.
My writing stayed in the background for many years until I was invited to write short stories for a couple of magazines which were well-received. I then dabbled with a novel for a couple of years before getting into my stride and writing my first publication The Picture.
At the moment I am halfway through my fourth novel, currently untitled. It is a story set in the UK and across Europe and deals with sex trafficking and organised crime from the perspective of an investigative journalist who is fighting his own battle with past tragedy while trying, against his better judgement to report what he has found.
As with all my novels I come up with a very broad idea of where I can see the story going. I write and rewrite parts and scenes in my mind until I see a path then I commence. That is how far I plan, maybe I’ll do some research at the start to get me on the right track but broadly speaking, once I start I write linearly. I stop and research as I go and edit sections before moving on. My word count is whatever I manage for the day but overall I aim for 90 – 100,00 words for a novel +/- as the editing progresses from me to beta readers and to my editor.
My basic day of writing would be re-read what I had last written, editing as I go. I find this gets me back into the moment. I then continue and write until I run out of steam or find myself veering off or woffling to pad out the chapter. Either way that is the end for the day be it 3 or 8 hours later. Rinse and repeat the next day until finished.
The hardest part of writing isn’t any sort of blockage, though they happen but I tend to get over them by just writing — sitting down and writing, getting words onto the page is, I have found the best solution. Even if what you have written isn’t great it gets the process moving along and gives you something to edit. It is difficult to edit a blank page. The hardest part for me is staying within the storyline. I have some great ideas which, unfortunately, don’t fit the arc, but I can waste hours trying to make them fit because I think they are so good — usually mistakenly.
In my current novel I have edited the first 2/3 of the novel to delete some of these great ideas I had but have turned into a bit of a millstone later on, something I have to be firm about.
I find the least enjoyable part is the whole process from writing The End onward. There are lots of moments of doubt once I release my latest to a broader audience (broader than me and my wife’s cat). Is it great or is it rubbish? Typos – the bane of my life, plot holes or bits that grate when read? All these things need identifying and fixing. Nothing wrong with having any of them, that’s life as a writer but the process of sorting it out is no longer writing, no longer imagination and art. It’s a drudge.
Any advice I can give? Keep going — you don’t fail until you stop trying. Writer’s block? No such thing — keep writing through, it, you can edit rubbish, you cannot edit a blank, tear stained page.
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