I haven’t posted for a while and this is for the very good reason that I have been keeping my head down and working away on my next novel. Since April it has gone from a mass of disconnected scenes to a coherent 84,000-word second draft.
I’ve made trips to Ireland and Rome for research (it’s such a good idea to set parts of your novel in foreign places!) and given the draft to my first readers for feedback.
As always when writing a novel, it’s a massive struggle and I never feel I know what I am doing. And then it starts to come together and repay the effort I’ve put in.
I came across a quote this morning from the 14th Century German mystic Meister Eckhart: ‘Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.’ And I thought; that’s what it feels like to sit down to write. As a writer, you are always a beginner, even if you’ve done it many times before. There is never a right way, an easy way, a method that works, just that terrifying – and then sometimes exhilarating – place of not knowing.