When I was leaving my job I was fortunate enough to have a really good group of friends there who made my parting gift something suitable, appropriate and thoughtful, a beautiful, leather-bound, cotton paged notebook for me to use in my new career.
As you can see I am yet to write in it, partly due to the breakneck pace at which I’m writing at the moment, and partly because when I do write in it I want to make sure I get it right. This is not the sort of book you want to just scribble in!
I do have a plan, though. My plan is to put an idea for a novel on each page of this beautiful tome, and a tick next to each when I’ve written them. So far I can very definitely write the first two pages (including a tick) with the details of my first two novels, and the third page can be filled out as the next book is already 50% completed (and mapped out in note format all the way to the conclusion) and I can put ideas down for at least another four pages/books that are my next projects. But what really excites me is the idea of coming up with something and then immediately getting it down on paper. As opposed to what I’ve done many times in the past, had an idea, thought it sounded really promising, then forgotten about it a week later when I tried to recall details…
Generally I have a single idea, a good character, or a particular situation, or a finale that I think would be amazing to write, and I build the rest of the book around that. Adding in supporting characters, a villain, a quest/mission/objective, fleshing out the original idea until it is a real story. I’ll write the first chapter, or sometimes the first two or three, and then add in the rest of the story in note format in sections written in CAPITAL LETTERS underneath. I then flesh out a section at a time from notes to prose, sometimes changing things as I go, but mostly sticking to the notes I’ve written.
An architect rather than a gardener.
So from now on I fully intend to write down each and every promising idea that pops into this old noggin of mine, and I will strive to turn each and every one of them into an entertaining page turner. And when each of them becomes a bestseller (as they obviously will, he says with a confidence borne of sheer delusion) I am going to go back to my old colleagues, and take them all out for a celebratory drink. Watch this space, I’ll hopefully be able to show that I am filling those pages very soon.
Oh, and a friend of mine suggested I bore you all with y process/journey as a writer, which I will make the subject of this online ramble in the next few days.
Stay Frosty, People.
Dave Eastman the Author 