Today I finally published my latest book, Without Trace. For those of you following this website, this is a change of name. Throughout the writing process it was provisionally called The Final Curtain. For me a book feels different when I have finally persuaded myself that it is ready to publish. Somehow when I look through the final draft and claw my way through the awful process of proof reading, the book has taken on a slighlty different character to the one I imagined it wold have. Hence the change of name and the design of the cover. One of my readers had worried that the title Final Curtain indicated that the Drake and Hepple Mysteries were finished. I hope this is no so.
Now I must work my way through the process of getting into a new novel. Of course I have some ideas but at the moment none of them excite me as much as they need to. You have to work for many months to produce a novel and you need the initial idea to provide the energy to sustain that process. Without that energy it is easy to give up when you run into a bad period and things just don't feel right. I was talking to a society recently about the writing process and, in response to a question, I said that I hardly ever experience what people imagine 'writers' block' to be. Once the book is under way, the characters talk to me and I 'hear' their words as I write. I know them well enough to imagine how they will behave and react to situations. So I hardly ever sit at my computer and wonder what to write next. It is during this inital phase that I feel blocked. It is agreeing with myself about the main plot, the locations and characters that causes me agonies. Once I have done this and got started I will blog again. Until then I do hope you all enjoy Without Trace.