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I was listening to a live chat with Anthony Horowitz last night, about his writing and the launch of his new novel #MoonflowerMurders. He wrote 11 books before he was published. I wonder what my magic number will be :-0

How long does it take to write a book?

I started my current WIP twelve years ago. It was started, put aside when life got busy, picked up again, worked on, I lost confidence, did some courses, realised that maybe I should just get on and do it (I even realised that by now I might even know what I was doing), then lost a bit more confidence and put it aside once more. As it is historical fiction, there was always the worry that there wasn’t enough period detail in it, or even worse, that it would become a text book with just a few fictional characters interspersing the narrative. So I did another course.

In the meantime I wrote and published books of other genre, just to delay the inevitable decision, was this book going to be written or not?

Two weeks ago I decided to complete the book and cast it out into the wide world to it’s fate, whatever that might be, and always being a fan of a deadline I looked around for a competition to enter to bring the situation to a head.

The Richard and Judy book club competition was two weeks away (closes midnight this Friday), so I decided to aim for that. Could I take all of the scattered, revised and re-revised chapters and combine them into a book before then? Yes I could. Would the book be completely finished? Probably not. But it would be a perfectly readable book. I might know that the description of the medieval guildhall wasn’t quite finished. Or I might realise that I hadn’t described in full, the altercation that Benedict and some French trouveres have. They delight in telling him where his father had run away too, when John deserted Benedict who was just a boy, leaving him alone to fend for himself in a 13th century castle?

But it is a good book, one that has twelve years of research, learning, angst, soul-searching, procrastination and love as it’s foundation, and two weeks worth of writing as the result.

The Rue Stone’s birthday blitz is starting to get some fab interest from these great bloggers!

https://www.rachelsrandomresources.com/the-rue-stone

‘The creative adult is the child who has survived.’ ― Ursula K. Le Guin

Saw this quote today and it reminded me of the first book I read that really resonated with me – way before Harry Potter – a boy Ged comes of age in the classic ‘A Wizard of Earthsea.’

If you haven’t read it, give it a try.

Well, although its stating the obvious, it’s been one hell of a funny year so far! Have I done loads of writing while I’ve been at home – erm…no. But I do feel guilty about that so I’m picking up the pace again. I’m still ploughing on with The Little servant – it does take a long time to write a novel you know – :-), and I’m hoping to book a blog tour for The Rue Stone in August, so if you haven’t read it yet, now would be a good time.

Its available on Amazon as a paperback and an ebook.

I’m also looking for a short story competition to enter, it’s about time I did some ‘new’ writing. I’ll keep you posted.