When it comes to writing, there are good times and then there are less-good times. Looking back over the writing of my last two-and-a-bit novels, I can trace the good times to holiday breaks.
For The Gathering of Shadows it was a long New Year’s Eve Weekend in a Reykjavik apartment. That yielded two chapters. For Those Under The Hill, a glorious September week on the Northumberland Coast between lockdowns inspired three chapters. And now, for Book 3 (I really must come up with a title sometime…), a weekend in a different part of Northumberland brought a chapter that, in very short order, led to two more.
I suppose none of this is very surprising. I mean, it’s quite a cliché, really; the author taking themselves away somewhere to get some actual writing done. Normally, I’m eking out a few hundred words at a time, working around the day job, family stuff – that sort of thing. A nice leisurely break somewhere gives me the sort of time and space to get my head down and build some momentum in a writing session. With a bit of luck, the words start to flow and next thing I know, I have a new chapter. And still have time for the pub.
Which, in a roundabout way, is me saying that Book 3 is coming along nicely. Sixteen chapters (plus a prologue) of nicely. 70,000 words of nicely.
I had better get a move on with that title, hadn’t I?
Mark N Drake 