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For someone who writes far future high action scifi, I���mquite old school. Very old school. I love writing in a notebook with a freshly sharpenedpencil. I love it when my notebooks become so battered, they start to fallapart and I have to glue them together to keep going.  

 

But nine books into a series of complex, interweavingstorylines where a one liner in one book becomes of immense importance three orfour or five books on, keeping track of everything is getting more and moretricky. Add in a delightful soupy mix of brain fog and fatigue, and I���m findingthat my memory is totally addled.

 

At one point, I forgot the names of my seven corporations.Not such a big deal until you consider I���ve been writing about this universe andthose organisations for over thirty years. Last year I spent three full days trawlingthrough books and notebooks trying to track and account for a single item.

 

Early on, I used to use listed timelines where I���d correlateall significant events against each other. That was cool. Especially stickingon new sheets of paper each time and concertina-ing it all back into thenotebook.

 

When that got a bit unwieldy, I stuck a huge piece of brownpaper on the wall and scribbled a massive single timeline, stretching fromDerren Bay pre-Kheris through to the end of Book 7, with all the splintertimelines coming off it for Sean, LC and Hil. That was also cool and is stillon the wall.

 

But after taking a break to wrap up LC���s three stories with DefyingWinter, starting to work on the next big book was increasingly intimidating,never mind the fact it���s NG. I have pages of half-legible notes and lists, detailingstuff I need to deal with still, loose threads, questions that are stillhovering, people I want to catch up with and places I want to revisit.

 

I tried using an online wiki and offline spreadsheets tolist out names and details of colonies, ships and alliances but must admit thateffort was half-hearted at best.

 

My turning point was to mention my dilemma to a couple of peopleI happen to know. There���s software, they said. And so now my list is morecomplete than ever thanks to an intense few months of crawling through everybook, page by page and entering every scrap of information into a data analysistool with the help of a rather awesome data analyst.

 

It���s like having a huge murder wall pasted with photographsand news clippings, with interlinking and crisscrossing red strings everywhere,but on a screen that lets you change the central focus of interest, be it a person,far flung colony, deep space warship or object, and spin all the dataaccordingly��� across the whole galaxy, across time, and with big red markers forthe bad guys. It���s super cool.

 

Disturbingly, people who have died are marked with a littlered x��� that was difficult at times.

 

Now when anyone asks how I keep track when writing such ahuge complex story, I have an answer. I still use my pencil and paper lists,but now I have data analysts to hand when I get stuck or if I need to know whowas commander on which ship in what battle���

 

ps.HANOVER(Thieves��� Guild Origins: LC Complete Trilogy) is out now in paperback,hardback and Kindle, featuring Kheris Burning, Beyond Redemption and DefyingWinter, but with Spacey���s complete story in between and a sneaky peek at Hil���sfirst book, Temerity, which takes place during Book 7.

 

pps.If everything goes to plan, we���ll be at Sci-Fi Scarborough this weekend andKapow in Stockton on Tees in July. After that���? We���ll see. Hope to see youaround somewhere xx

 

ppps.My latest mindful obsession is making junk journals out of Covid lateral flowtest boxes and empty painkiller packets, so much so that we���ll be at Base Campin Middlesbrough in June as part of The Crossing The Tees Book Festival incollaboration with The Post Apocalypse School of Teesside with a junk journalworkshop :) Bring along your bits and pieces of paper rubbish and make anawesome notebook!

 

 

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