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I was delighted yesterday, before the clock chimed midnight and 2011 was ushered in, to meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing the complete first draft of the Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel, number seven in the series.  All right, so I wasn't working until midnight, only until seven p.m. when I had to get changed for a dinner engagement but I was determined to get those last few critical chapters on to the computer. Now I can begin in earnest the next phase, that of the revisions, i.e. making sure that everything ties up and fleshing out the characters personalities and motivations - really looking forward to it. I'm working towards a deadline of having the novel completed by the end of March, so I guess that's my writing New Year's Resolution, that and to continue writing throughout 2011 so I'd better get on with it. Happy New Year!

I managed to do a good chunk of writing over the weekend, in between making soup, bread, mince pies and doing a little Christmas shopping. Oh, and taking elderly mother out in the snow and ice to top up on her needs in case the snow stays around or we get more of it. Down here in the soft south, snow before Christmas is practically unheard of.  Yes, we've had the occasional flurry before the festive season but if we do get snow then it usually arrives after Christmas, sometimes on Boxing Day. The novelty now seems to have worn off, even the children aren't playing in the snow or building snowmen anymore; been there, done that, got the T shirt. But back to the writing. The new Inspector Andy Horton crime novel is coming along a treat. I'm on second revisions and it's shaping up well. For those who have asked me there is a little more in this novel about Andy's quest to find out what happened to his mother after she walked out on him and disappeared from his life wh...

Exciting because it is fresh unchartered waters and although I have a basic plot outline and character sketches I'm still not sure where the tide will take me and which shore my novel will wash up on. It is tense too because I am in a hurry to write it as fast as I can while my head is full of ideas.  I try to resist editing too much as I write the first draft because editing slows down the creative process and it is very easy to get hooked on editing and therefore postpone finishing the novel. However, because I research as I go along and the characters and plot grow, some editing is inevitable. I resist the temptation though to revise every paragraph, sentence and word, that can come later.  The aim is to write the first draft as quickly as possible. So a good rule, which I therefore try to follow (although not always successfully) is to begin each day from the last sentence I wrote the preceding day. So far I am up to chapter fou...

Working on the next Inspector Andy Horton, the sixth in the series, I am reminded of a question a reader asked me at a talk I gave recently. How do prevent repeating yourself?  The answer can be both with great difficulty, and do I need to worry about this anyway? Once you find an author you like you search for other novels he or she has written because the style of the writing appeals to you .  Therefore a degree of repetition is part of what we like about our favourite novelists, and most writers repeat themselves, that in a sense is exactly what the reader wants.  At the same time the reader obviously wants a fresh story, a new mystery to fathom out, to be intrigued, gripped, entertained, etc. As a writer the challenge then is to maintain the style your readers like, develop the characters, if it is a series, and at the same time produce something new. The themes and plots of the novels change but every author has a...

I've started the third revision of the next Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel (no. 6) and still no title springs to mind.  I'm hoping that by the end of this revision inspiration will have come to me.  Sometimes a title will come instantly as in Dead Man's Wharf and Tide of Death .  Other times I struggle.  I like the title to be connected with the sea in some way reflecting where the series is set.  It also has to fit with the genre.  Perhaps I should write a blurb on this Horton novel and invite suggestions for a title.  Maybe that's not such a bad idea and the winning title gets a signed copy of the novel when it is published. I'll ponder that one and keep you posted. The third revision for me is where I begin to take more time to flesh out the characters and make sure that the plot and sub plots all tie up, and not necessarily together.  I ensure the research is correct and that the storyline is feasible and th...

My wrists ache, my shoulders are sore, my brain was spinning all night and I feel guilty because I didn't e mail or phone any of my friends, I barely looked at Facebook and Twitter, and my husband got about half a dozen words out of me - which might be a blessing, of course, as far as he's concerned. Why?  Because I was grappling with the plot of the next DI Horton marine mystery crime novel, and couldn't for the life of me fathom out who had done it!  That might sound weird, as I'm the author, surely I should know, but this often happens.  I have several suspects in the frame, then I start thinking, 'no, it's too obvious it's him,' or 'It can't be her because she's got no motive.'  I could, of course, invent motives aplenty, but it's got to ring true. Now, after bashing out a sketchy end on my keyboard yesterday evening, considering it overnight and looking at it in the fresh light of day, I believe it will work.  I hope it will ...