Stuart Bone's Blog - Posts Tagged "advice"

Trying to be a bit less creative at the moment as I'm filling out my tax return for last year. Yes, I'm doing it very early but, although I've been writing full time for the last four years, those prior 20 odd years as an accountant still have an affect on me.

I'm a couple of chapters in to the first draft of 'Crime & Nourishment' now and the characters and plot are developing nicely. It's actually quite fun being the only person who knows the outcome, but like a gossiper who's desperate to let someone know the secret they're keeping; I'm able to drop in a few clues and hints here and there to pique people's interest.

A first draft is great once you've actually started it. Beforehand the entire novel stretches before you; a great big, daunting task; but once you've typed that first sentence then you're away. It doesn't have to be the best sentence you've ever written yet; that comes later. A first draft is just getting the entire story written, ensuring the plot and characters work and that the novel is a decent length. With this draft you can just keep writing and writing and writing and not look back until you've finished.

I think with each new book the first draft does become a little more detailed. In 'Driven to Distraction' it was about half the length of the final story and there wasn't much of it left in the published novel. With 'Nothing Ventured' the length was fine and the structure didn't change much by the end. Now with 'Crime & Nourishment' I've spent a lot more time planning and I'm probably a bit more conscious of detail at this early stage than I was in the previous two, but I'll still be following the same format of just writing and writing and writing until it's done.

It doesn't matter if I make mistakes or if I feel I want to change large chunks of the story; that's what a first draft is for and every new draft brings me closer to the final, polished novel that's ready for publication. My last first draft resulted in me abandoning the entire project. That can happen too but so what; all it's cost me is a little time but I still learned from the experience and some of the characters I created are stored away for use in the future.

I've seen a lot of comments on Social Media sites where people say they want to write but haven't. I think they're just daunted by the task but the answer is just to begin. Take a piece of paper or switch on your computer and write one sentence - now you've begun.