A Writer's Life

Sometimes you forget that blogging is really supposed to be about what you are doing, and not just reporting on the things that tickle/annoy you. Unfortunately, much of a writer’s life is incredibly boring. Here, then, in the interests of scientific analysis, is what I’ve been doing this morning.

6:30am Woke up, made tea, read websites for news.

7:00am Showered and breakfasted (we’re out of fig jam)

7:30am Finished writing review for Financial Times (I’m now their crime reviewer) – Sara Paretsky, pretty good.

8:15am Blogged (some items are prepared the night before, most were from today)

9:00am Answered mail from Bryant & May nitpickers (I have misplaced Golders Green tube escalator, my character Maggie Armitage is ‘unrealistic’ – I’ll have to tell her when I see her, she’ll be most upset. Actually I tone her down for the books)

9:30am Got back to work on the thriller. I am working on a dark, rather odd suspense novel concerning the omissions of truth we make in our lives. I have no buyer for this, and it may never see the light of day (like several other completed novels)

11:00am Checked post. Parcel Force managed to slip another card under my door saying I’m out, which is news to me.

12:00am Headed across London to see a mate for lunch who’s now working at the Horror Channel.

So the key section of the morning – ie. the writing part, has so far taken up just an hour and a half. Pitiful. The problem is that I have no deadline. This afternoon I should be able to manage four or five hours on the book. Often I’ll go until around 10pm – then my thoughts break up into disconnected pixels (I’m not a night person – rather, I’m horribly chipper in the morning)

When I arrive at the second draft of the thriller (in about six weeks) I’ll head out and do more research, but the Bryant & May books have all the London facts, and a thriller is required to be more generic, so that you can imagine the story taking place where you live. This is why fantasies can sell so well – they’re universal because the locations don’t exist. (Try telling that to the tourists who photograph the stupid Harry Potter platform at King’s Cross – surely they could have built something a bit more imaginative?

Imagination though – that’s the problem. Writers live inside their heads, so their blogs resemble scrapbooks. Me, I’m addicted to coppers’ blogs, horror film blogs, London blogs – check out Nickel In The Machine, the inappropriate title for one of the very best London blogs here. Meanwhile, I’m stepping back inside my head to find the next chapter of my thriller.