This week I’ve been re-reading Blaze by Richard Bachman (Stephen King). Seeing as I’m nearing the 100 page mark on my crime novel, I thought it best to read something in the same vein. And if not the same vein, then at least the same mood.
And who better to read, than King? When he works the shorter form (less than 500 pages) he’s really firing on all cylinders, and hopefully this will help in some way as I put together my first draft. Though I have to say, I’ve not enjoyed writing a project this much since I wrote Tutti Frutti. It just seems to flow. And whilst the plot has taken a bit of time to figure out – this is a project I’ve been planning to write for a long while – I’ve found the best way was to go for a loose outline, and just fill the gaps as I go. It allows for spontaneity, and for me to picture the before and after of things that happening, so that it makes sense to the reader whilst also being fresh and exciting.
I hope.
With this one, I’m actually going to go old school and PRINT it out. I’ll be doing my own edit, with a red pen, then making the changes back into Google Docs. THEN I’ll send it to Laurie for editing. Hopefully, doing this the old school way will knock out a lot of the problems she usually pulls me up on.
In either case, it lets me experience doing it the old way, even if I never do it like that again.
Then once I’m done with From Brighton With Love, I’ll be going to back to work on Far From Home 4.
Hope you’re all well and Happy New Year.
Tony Healey 