An Elephant walks into the room.

I never sit down and think about writing a novel, about what to write. I wait for the story to come to me. When I finish a book I’ll hang around and wait for a story to come. After writing eight novels (five already published and the others to follow) I’ve got the method down pat.

I never worry or think about it but know it’ll come when I’m ready. Just relax, deal with the other shit more than I do when I’m writing.

I know how it will come. It will be by accident. I’ll be browsing for something else, watching the news or a film and something will just pop out, maybe not even related, just a phrase, or a footnote in a book, an object in the background and I know it when it comes. If I can spend more than ten minutes thinking on it, getting excited about the possibilities and the journey that might be ahead then I know I’ve got it. If it doesn’t still hold me after that or the morning after or the week after, if I don’t dream about it, then I know that wasn’t it, that maybe it was someone’s else’s story and I just tapped into it along the path to them.

Sometimes I know I can’t write it. I can’t afford to invest in something that might take me five years, or travel too much, study too much. It’s got to be something that I can do in about eight months or I won’t be able to feed my family. There are no rich patrons in my life. I’ve got to consider that sometimes I can’t afford to write and when you think about it maybe no-one ever can. Or can’t afford not to.

So I never really have much to say. Blogging ain’t my thing. But the strangest thing came to me today and I’m going to think about it over the holidays and new year. It wasn’t there yesterday.