February, 2010
Wordcount
In which I attempt to chart the process of writing a new novel from conception to delivery - via the writing, the re-writing and the not writing even though I should be.
Subscribe to WordcountOn Immediately Renaming Characters
So it turns out, maybe the reason the name “Tom Barnaby” popped into my head is because…it’s the name of the lead character in the eternally running tv show Midsomer Murders. (Thanks, Sara; phew). I don’t know if this is pure coincidence, or if the name had lodged in my subconscious, or what. Funnily enough, [...]
On Naming Characters
February, 2010
So today I sat down and worked out what everyone’s name is going to be — at least in the first draft. I dislike thinking up character names: get them wrong and the character mutates and becomes someone else. Get the names right and a curious alchemy takes place; they come alive and start talking [...]
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On ideas
February, 2010
First principles, and the biggest question: where did the idea come from? I wish I knew for sure — I’d go back there more often. The slightly complicated truth is, in one way the idea came easily. In another, there was a time when I didn’t think it would come at all. I wrote a [...]
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On Beginning
January, 2010
The first real-life novelist I ever met was Martin Millar. This was during the mid 1990s, when I was a bookseller at Waterstone’s in Leeds. Martin Millar had written a bunch of books I liked — Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation chief among them, with Lux the Poet a close second. I’m not sure he’s [...]
Read: On Beginning
