THE DAILY GRIND

Got to thinking about the whole writing process.

I am amazed and a little awe-struck when I read of authors who firstly know with mechanical precision just how their book is going to proceed and secondly are able to bash out 5,000+ words a day in the process.

With me it's a little more haphazard,

Sure I know vaguely (very vaguely) where the plot of my book is headed but generally I have no idea how characters are going to develop nor do I have any forensic idea of what twists and turn my storyline might take. It just sort of happens. I find characters take on a life of their own - which is probably why they're all so strange - and as for the plot...well, as I write it evolves and interesting ideas occur to me which just beg to be followed.

It's a hugely inefficient way of working and generally means I have to cull 50,000 words from every book to make it sensible and coherent. But it does mean that I come up with some good ideas. ..well i hope they're good, otherwise it's all pretty pointless.

As for my daily quota: I aim to put down 20,000 words a week. Now they might not be particularly good words but they are capable of being polished and revised.

With The Demi-Monde 2 I'm bang on schedule though writing the tract on what ImPuritanism is was a real stretch. But having said that I'm pretty pleased with how my Dark Charismatics fit right in...