Back to the Start.

Sometimes it’s helpful to go back to where it all began.

Today, I found myself back in the place where I started writing. It wasn’t a physical location, though: it was the first location in the Empire that I ever wrote about: the capital city of Traville.

It’s a strange feeling writing about Traville again because I haven’t written about it for about a year now – such has been the process of writing my first novel. Now, midway through the second novel (no spoilers), I find myself describing the city again; walking through its laneways, and getting to know the special place I created when I first started out.

Now that I’m back in Traville, I’m seeing the benefits of the early pieces I wrote. One of the things I’d recommend to anyone who’s thinking about writing a novel is to start with short stories first: they allow you to learn and grow in your writing style, whilst getting experience in story crafting. In my case, the Inspector Ambrose stories I wrote also enabled me to save time as I wrote my first novel – I’d done the background work that I could build on.

Over the next week, I’ll be writing a bunch of scenes in Traville before my story rolls on. Someone emailed me recently saying that they think Traville is like a character; it grows, it breathes, it has secrets. I think there’s some real truth in that.

And I’m enjoying walking the streets of the Empire once more.