Dangerous
My writing day starts at 10am. In the summer, that’s post-breakfast in the summer house where I’ll look at my notes from the day before and see where the current story’s going. In the winter, that’s after a little breakfast TV and a snuggle by the fire.
Then I’m off! Someone once said that writing is grunt work, not glamorous at all; it’s something that must be done every day whatever your mood, and they’re dead right. Sometimes it’s hard, like pulling teeth – and on other days I’ll gallop to the computer with a hot idea in my head, desperate to get it down before it evaporates into the ether. Good day or bad, the golden rule is: just do it.
Writing a 110,000 word book every year is a full-time job, one that alternately delights and agonises. I love beginning a new book, hate ending it. I despise edits and take every comment as a personal insult, which I tell myself is just stupid, but there it is; you can’t legislate for how you feel. Luckily my fantastic editor handles the whole process with extreme gentleness and tact! Even my crazed notion of proper timelines is taken into account and smoothly corrected.
So, back to the day in my writing life. 10am is start time, then I write on until 2pm, and pause for lunch, then edit in the afternoon and start thinking about what comes next. By the following morning, usually the next scene is there at the back of my mind, waiting to be written.
Late in the afternoon, I’ll go for a swim or do some Pilates or yoga or gardening because sitting hunched over a computer is bad for the spine! Then it’s back to my desk to squeeze out just a little more of the book if it’s possible. I am lucky enough to have two offices, one upstairs, one down, both with lovely views out over the South Downs National Park, and the kitchen table is often used too, and the terrace; I just need a quiet space to work in. And that’s the way I spend most weekdays; I never work at weekends.
Of course, grunt work is not ALL there is to a writer’s day. Sometimes the day turns out to be a lot of fun, involving being made up and having my hair done for photoshoots, interviews with national newspapers and glossy magazines, London trips to meet publishers and agents, and research to be done in foreign countries. Sometimes I’ll be lucky enough to be invited to attend literary events (Harrogate’s Theakston’s Old Peculier crime festival and Crimefest in Bristol are particular favourites) and those are welcome distractions from the daily business of writing books.
But once all the fun is over, it’s back to the computer and that ‘falling through that hole in the page’ feeling comes over me, and I’m back there in fantasy land, writing, doing what I love more than anything else in the whole world.