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Are you always thinking about your characters? Are you just a tiny bit in love with DI Andy Horton? These are a couple of questions I'm sometimes asked and the answer to both is 'yes.' The relationship between writers and their characters varies but it is never dull. You can become a little bit obsessed with your characters. Oh, alright then very obsessed and more so I think when writing a series because they are with you all the time, they are as much part of your life as real people, occupying your thoughts on and off throughout the day, but strangely I never dream of them. I think about my characters a great deal and in terms of plot. Where are they? What will they do next?  How will they react to this or that situation?  What is happening in their private lives as well as in the job?  What is their relationship with their colleagues? But no matter how much I plan, the plot can get changed because once I  start putting dialogue int...

My radio interview with Rob Richardson of Write-Invite on Express FM went well yesterday and I very much enjoyed talking to Rob about my marine mystery crime novels and how I write. You can listen to it on the Express FM web site on Tuesday 6 July at 7pm or on 93.7 FM. I also have a recording of the broadcast and this will shortly be edited and posted on the Pauline Rowson You Tube Channel   where you can already listen to a range of recordings by me.  In these I read from my crime novels, discuss  how I develop characters and plots, read the prologues from my thrillers, talk about where I get my ideas from, and more.  There are also two videos of my interview with Raychel Harvey-Jones discussing my crime and police procedural detective novels.  In addition, you can watch these interviews on my web site .  I'll let you know when the latest interviews go live and will also post them here.

Yesterday I started to blitz my office, the place where I write my marine mystery crime novels.  The Bank Holiday weekend affords the perfect opportunity to do this especially when it's cool, wet and windy. And, because I have finished writing the sixth Inspector Horton crime novel, ( Footsteps on the Shore) I am now ready to sift through all those ideas I've accumulated over the last year and shoved in a folder ready to pick out those that appeal to me, which might begin to form the basis of a plot for number seven in the series. So it's not only cleaning and chucking out time (why did I keep that magazine from 2008?) it's also filing and thinking time. I already have some ideas for Andy Horton's next adventure. If and when you read Footsteps on the Shore you'll see that I've left it on a bit of a cliff hanger - what will happen to Andy Horton next?  Will he still be in CID? Will he get any closer to finding out what happened to his mother after s...

I am often asked how I research my novels. I know that some writers prefer to do all their research up front before they begin writing the novel but I like to do some basic research when the idea for the novel occurs to me and while I flesh out an outline plot, and then start writing the first draft, while the research is incomplete. Why this way? Because once I have the basics of the plot, characters and research I can’t wait to start the creative writing process with an urge to complete it as quickly as possible. In fact, I often wish I could brain dump straight on to the computer without having to touch the keyboard. I then continue the research process as I write. On the first draft I often don’t know the ending or even ‘who done it’ because the whole novel doesn’t come alive until Inspector Horton starts investigating and gets into all sorts of trouble as a result. Or if it’s a thriller like In Cold Daylight or In For The Kill , until something happens to my main character, th...

I was inspired to dash off this little ditty this afternoon after reading a 'Rhyme On Publishing' on a great little blog written by Sophie Dean http://www.bitbookish.com/2010/02/08/rhyme/ Writers in Rhyme We toil away for days and days With pen and PC in a writer’s haze Creating, researching, dreaming up plots Until many months later we have something hot. We hone and revise until sick of the thing Then it’s off to the editor with an e mail ping. We wait for weeks and with bated breath Has it been given the kiss of death? Some minor changes just here and there We make them grudgingly, but with flair. Copy edits and proofs keep us very busy And the cover image makes us feel rather dizzy! Then silence follows for weeks, maybe more Until a lumpy parcel arrives at our door. The novel’s in print, hurrah you cry But are sales and marketing giving it a try? If you’re really lucky, or quite well known You’ll get some PR from a girl called Joan. Is it selling wel...

I know I've covered this here before but because it's the question that people ask me most often I thought there would be no harm in covering it again, albeit in a different way and with more information. People are genuinely fascinated to learn where writers get their ideas from and many people tell me they'd never be able to come up with an idea for a book let alone enough ideas for a series of novels.  But ideas really are the easy part of writing - once you have trained your mind to openly look for them, or spot them when they miraculously occur - it is turning the ideas into a novel of 80,000-100,000 words that is the tricky bit. Ideas for novels come from a variety of sources: overheard conversations, stories relayed by others, personal experience, locations and the news, which pops up in my Google Reader: for example a Windsurfing Festival on Hayling Island could serve as a potential investigation for an Inspector Andy Horton marine myste...