I started writing book five at the beginning of January. Considering I had a few distractions along the way I think I’ve done rather well. Right now I’m coming to the end of the first draft. Hurrah! Cue much celebration, a bottle of something other than cheap supermarket beer, perhaps even some kind of present to myself to mark the occasion. But hang on. I’ve got a pile of words. Tens of thousands of them. I need to check back and see what’s what. And that’s when I realise that all I have is a huge steaming mass of poop. I wonder what my editor thinks of poop? I have a nasty feeling her nose will wrinkle and she’ll say ‘Mark, this is a pile of cr*p.’
She’d be right.
I’m jealous of writers who can turn out word perfect first drafts, their storylines coherent, their characters fully developed, their endings knockout. Because that’s not me. I write by creating scenes and I create those scenes in a random order. One moment I might be working on the end scene and the next jump to one in the middle of the book. Sometimes scenes are disconnected and appear to have nothing to do with the story. When I’ve reached my word count I’ll try to juggle things around and see what happens. Often it’s a process similar to a jigsaw, only where the puzzle has pieces from another mixed in with it. I’ll try to force some scenes into the mix but they won’t fit. In other places they’ll be a missing piece. The whole thing is likely an editor’s nightmare. Which is why no one gets to see it at this stage.
So while you were hoping to find something out about the book by reading this post, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. You see I don’t know much about it myself!
Here’s a little teaser though. This cove appears in the book. If you recognise it then full marks – you really know the South Devon coastline.
