Category Archives: crime writing

Writing in the negative upside

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Waiting waiting working waiting — negative capability Keats called it. While one book is out seeking an agent I thought I’d better start the next. You know, just in case a scary Yes email comes and among other things the question is: what-when is your next? I have the idea, I have the main storyline, I’m doing some (interesting!) research, but… I need the voice. And you know what? I am positive it will come. I have learned to trust. To keep working around the edges, and tolerate the creative state Keats identified: ‘when one is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.’

Can I stretch it to tolerating rejections of A Body of Knowledge? Yes, that too — part of the game. Just send my adult contemporary novel about a fairytale-telling therapist out again again again. However, now it has a new title:  The Misper’s Tale. I like the first title, but perhaps it promised darkness and this is not a suspense-ridden crime story; it is gentle, thoughtful. Even if it does have police procedure in it.

A new winter haiku on my haiku page here.  Hmmm ‘punching the sky’ — a bit of irritability there?

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Writing patterns

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Golden November. And it’s NANOWRIMO too. If you’ve never done it and you want a breakthrough in your writing, DO IT; guess I’d better put the link in here. Talk about patterns of writing, this go for broke method led me to the novel I completed in late spring. I am now submitting A Body of Knowledge to agents, a whole ‘nother adventure.

Of course once I had the breakthrough — after two agonising days of facing the blank page and writing rubbish, and only then finding a voice I didn’t know — I had to keep writing for the whole month. The flow was fantastic, and the freeeedom to write any old how. Besides that, there is no such thing as a novel in a month (but it’s fun to say). Once you get to the end of November you’ve got 10-20-30-50??000 words. Rest, recover, keep writing. And then edit-revise-rethink… a very different kind of pattern.

Patterns, seasons… time to add an autumn to my haiku page. Click here for a peek.

Writing: nailed it

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Six months later… she emerges from the intense re-writing of A Body of Knowledge. And the challenge of synopsis and letters-to-agents. I vowed to get my mystery about a therapist who tells fairytales off to six agents by end of July, and I’ve nailed it (just one week late).

Thanks to author Diane Chandler (Moondance, The Road to Donetsk – Blackbird Books )for being my Beta reader. To husband Michael for being my First reader. To Rachel Knightley and her Green Ink Writers Gym for incisive support on Chapter 1 and approaching agents. To Jericho Writers for their wonderful Agent Match and online tutorials.

UPDATE: I forgot to say big thanks to editor-tutor Jayne Watson and to all at Retreats for You in Sheepwash, Devon where a year ago this month I went to wrestle with the first rewriting, a wonderful writers’ haven.

And 6xmonths apologies to family, friends and followers whom I have had to abandon to get to this stage. Normal broadcasting will resume shortly… And thanks to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, full of colour and creativity, including this fierce and wonderful dog by T. Blewitt

 

Writing juice

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Scene of the crime… that is the Times Crime Club Masterclass last night held way up high. Besides top agent Jane Gregory, top Hodder editor Julia Wisdom, and three super-established authors (Sophie Hannah, Charles Cumming, Henry Sutton) they even arranged a glorious sunset. It’s always good to get a writing boost from those who know. The plot-comes-out-of-character v character-comes-out-of-plot is one to turn over in the mind. And this reminder gave me a huge clue on how to resolve my struggle with Chapter 6: ‘What does the character want? What is in the way?’

Writing with police

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Police to the rescue — when researching for my detective novel a great source turns up at the local Chiswick House Café. Community Police Team heard out my tale of an alternative therapist who finds a body in the woods in Chiswick — what happens next? Real police for the real deal from what they wear, what the skipper decides, is she under suspicion, to when CID comes in and how they’ll track that car. And the difference between harassment and anti-social behaviour. Doing their duty, Constable Aung (with me here) and Office Kingsmill wish to reassure the public that Chiswick is safe. But they also like a good story — so that’s two fans for my Julia Deogracias and A Body of Knowledge?

 

 

Writing desperately

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p1120560I am desperate to sort out the timeline. So much depends on the sequence of things. But I can’t figure out actions/things until the players speak, act, interact. That’s where the tension is and there’s tension of time and tension of characters. And then tension of interweaving storylines of J and T. I need to write scenes to know what is happening, only then are the characters real and alive, and the drama is what leads to a cliffhanger or next opening. But if I don’t know the timing… it won’t work. So I am just writing scenes into the blue and putting xxx for days and dates. But whenever I get through the draft and sort it, then the scenes might not work. ARGH, I’ve never done it this way before! = The meaning of the word NOVEL. New. First time. Just talking here from the crime detection writing coalface…

PS A new haiku on so still page here.

Writing in the dark

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slkerr-chis-lanterns-shipStill bashing away at the Discovery Draft and I’d written myself into a fab cliff hanger. Next day, Nooooo. I’ve run into a wall of resistance. I need a scene with a drama between T and her father. He’s the wicked baddie… has driven her to lies. So it is a backstory set-up, tense drama but short.

BUT I am writing in bits. Scenes, short chapters, and I’m not even sure of the order and timings. I want to stay loose so as to feel free and invent. Yet I want to stitch it all together to see if the order works. Without nailing myself down. Argh — stuck every way I turn.

This is writing in the dark, bashing on. Meanwhile here’s my photo of a magical lantern show in the gardens of Chiswick House — ships that pass in the night?

Writing v agent-search

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Ooooh, real hard-won advice from real helpful author Catherine Ryan Howard. I asked on hercatherineryanhowarddistress vlog and she answered me by name… How do you write your book and still do that big search for an agent? Tune into her blog Here for her reply. And loads of other good stuff on her blog, on all sorts of things. Thank you, Catherine — and here’s her exciting thriller!