I’ve had a lovely time recently going to speak to groups about my books, and I especially enjoy groups whose main interest is in writing. There is always a question period, and what I’ve learned lately is that the questions I get actually require a level of self awareness about my process that is quite demanding. I would love to be a glamorous writer, suave, elegantly attired, lounging with a cocktail in one hand and a computer in the other, in complete command of her craft. But the truth is it’s usually just me, dressed in old ratty pyjamas and a deplorable ex-fluffy pink bathrobe, floundering about wondering how I made the whole thing work last time.
In fact…if you move the cocktail over you have a complete picture of me exercising my craft. So I’ve actually begun to think very hard about how I write, because I know more and more that I will be asked quite specific questions about it and these are truly interesting questions, because I suspect that how people approach the whole business is as individual as the condition of their bathrobes.
I’m starting on my sixth book in the Lane Winslow series at the moment, and I can still only really identify two ‘rules’ I follow without fail: 1) Don’t erase anything, ever, on the first write and 2) You don’t know where it’s going until you write it. So I come in to these meetings quite prepared to expound on theses two rules and so far, I’ve never been asked, “What are your two-iron clad rules about writing?” Only this week I was at a school, and a student asked instead, “How do you keep from boring yourself when you have to write a whole book?” This is a real, meaty question and it turns out it is at the very heart of how I write, so I’m going to take a stab at it.
How DO I keep from boring myself? I will admit it now, there are some times when I’m writing a segment and I’m actually yawning as I write. This does not bode well for the readers. (readers will be happy to learn I usually chuck those bits in the bin, but not right away, obviously; Rule 1) The best answer I can give is this: I do not pre-plot the whole thing, because if I did, the whole exercise of writing would be one of trying to infill the sections between these pre-determined plot points. I would bore myself rigid.
Writing is for me a real process of exploration and discovery, and most importantly, it centers on my characters. I never know where my characters, or the situations I’ve created, will take me when I sit down to do my day’s 700-2000 words, but I will always be looking at what they might be about to say and do, and how it moves the story along. Because of that I fondly imagine that my brain is up top beavering away throwing down ideas, and saying things like “Oo! Oo! How about this?” I listen to my brain when it’s doing that, and I am often quite delighted with some clever idea I’d never have thought of if I’d tried to work the whole story out ahead of time.
If I knew before I sat down to work where I was supposed to be going, I’m absolutely certain that my brain would take one look at the pre-worked plot and say “obviously you don’t need me around for whatever this is supposed to be..”, and go off to the spa for the day, leaving me desperately trying to fill in the spaces in an artificial construct I’d pre-made.
Every one of my books start with nothing but a single image, and the general idea that probably someone will have to die, and Lane Winslow, Inspector Darling and Ames are going to have to figure it out. Everything else bubbles up as I’m actually writing and thinking about the people in the story. And that is why I don’t get bored. It is quite literally something new and unexpected for me every day.
