So, time for the next book!

Quite often when people find out that I write novels the next thing they say is, “Oh really? Everyone always says I should write a book but I just don’t have the time.” At this point I usually count to ten because time isn’t something I have vast quantities of either. Like most writers I know, I also have a day job. In my case this is teaching English at secondary level and as well as working at school I also have tonnes of marking and planning to do at home. Once this is done then it’s time to hunker down and write. If you really want to write then sacrifices have to be made and my social life was the first casualty, followed by any hope of every having a night to do nothing and a body that is well exercised ...

My point is that if you really want to write then write you will. Nothing will stand in your way. It’s more of a compulsion than a job anyway. For me, I can’t imagine a life where I’m not planning a new book, writing one, wrestling edits and sorting covers. Even though it does cost me in other ways, just hearing that one person has enjoyed what I write makes the eye bags and extra pounds worthwhile.

So today I am thinking about my next novel. “Dead Romantic” is out in just over a week, “Escape for Christmas” is with my editor and the latest short story has just been published in “My Weekly”. My publishing schedule for the next 12 months is really busy and I need to make sure that I make the most of every spare moment. This means - and it sounds really boring - that I have to have my novels planned and ready to go.

I can already hear you saying that writing is supposed to be creative. The image of the writer sitting down for a cuppa with the muse and then creating wonderful prose off the top of his or her head is all very well but in the real world, which is where I live most of the time, this is more of an indulgence than a reality. In fact, it’s worse than that- it’s the recipe for waffle and a rambling novel that has the right to roam across weeks and months of valuable writing time. Writing, although wonderful, is a job and if you are being paid to write you have to be professional and deliver. Editors and publishers don’t like having to extend deadlines and agents hate having to go cap in hand and ask for more time for their clients. Writing is a business and to be taken seriously you have to be business like.

I know. It all sounds very serious and boring, doesn’t it?

The good news is that is you are strict with yourself there can be lots and lots of wonderfully creative things going on but within a tightly structured frame work. This all sounds pretty virtuous coming the girl who has run it up to the wire on several occasions, but I’ve been doing this job long enough now to know what works for me. I’m not saying my way is the only way or that it will work for everyone but I have learned some pretty tough lessons. A tightly planned book is a better book, there is no doubt in my mind about this. Within that planning of course there is room to be creative. Characters will still say and do things that totally take you by surprise and the plot will twist and turn in ways you never expect. That’s the joy of writing. A tight plan will help you to wrestle them into some kind of order and make sure that your narrative remains structured. My early (and unpublished!) novels wiggle around like my year sevens before break time and I totally understand now why they were rejected.

So, I promised that I would take you with me on the journey of the next book. Hopefully you haven’t given up yet! The working title of this one is “The Little Caribbean Cafe” and it is going to be set on the paradise island of St Antonia, a small tax haven in the sunshine - not unlike a certain island I know!

My first job has been to scope out locations for the book. I do this by visiting various places on the island and snapping picture of them. Hooray for the advent of the iphone! This really helps me to have vivid images in mind when I write and I like to jot down sensory impressions when I visit the place. Oh dear. I am such an English teacher sometimes! Once I have the images I pop them onto a pin board on Pinterest for my readers to enjoy and I also keep a record of them in a folder on the desktop of my writing Mac. When I’m working on a scene I’ll often refer to the images to help me. This was a really good habit that I learned when I was writing for Working Partners. I do the same with characters too. Images from the internet, picture of actors who resemble characters or even people I meet (imagine my shock the other day when I met a waiter who looked exactly like Cal from the ‘Escape’ books!) Once I have my images sorted I am then ready to start the next phase of the book - planning the novel.

Here’s the pinboard for “The Little Caribbean Cafe” so far!

And here are some more pictures that will help me to build my world. To make it authentic for my readers it has to be real to me.











































I’m off to do some planning now - more about that next time.