Making a Start

It was 33C when I left Saigon on Thursday. Today, it's 4C. But the sun is shining in a brilliant blue sky and I keep telling myself that while hot weather is great for holidays I really wouldn't like to be trying to work there, especially on one of the humid days. Probably. But it's still cold!

However, I managed to send off the new ms to my publisher before I went and came back to an email saying that they are delighted with it, so Devil's Garden, featuring DCI Kelso Strang, will be published in the spring. Look out for it! She wants another in the series, so now I'm going to have to get down to it.

I'm still at the stage of infinite possibilities when I chase will-o'-the-wisps without trying to make anything actually work, but from the moment I write the first paragraph, I have begun a process of restriction:if I have this, then I can't also have that.

I was interested in John's post about working on an outline, and was fascinated that Jeffrey Deaver takes eight months to write his.I know there are a lot of major writers who do that – I think it was Frederick Forsyth who claimed once he had all the ducks in a row it only took him six weeks to write the book. So perhaps that's what I should do.

My problem is that I find it very hard to convince myself I'm working unless the story is actually evolving on the screen in front of me and I get seriously neurotic if the 'playing with ideas' stage goes on too long, so my outline tends to be sketchy to say the least. My mantra to quell the four am panic sessions is 'Follow the story', so I need to establish a solid basis for that story early on, then have frequent reviews of where it will lead me next. It's always worked for me in the past.

So that's my challenge for the next few months. I came across a wonderful quote from Edith Wharton about the process of writing a book: 'The beginning: a ride through a spring wood. The middle: the Gobi desert. The end: going down the Cresta Run.' I'm looking forward to it, sort of.