Tag Archives: Writer

Susannah Wise: My Writing Process

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  • Susannah Wise: My Writing Process
      What you have written, past and present

 Like so many authors, I have always written stories, poems, and the beginnings of ‘novels’ that remained forever unfinished. As a young child these were complete with messy felt-tip illustrations and growing up, pieces of my work would appear in the school magazine each term. I’m still not sure of their merit, but Mum always thought they were great, and she obviously wasn’t biased. 

    In my late teens, I found myself in a long relationship with a playwright and screenwriter, and encouraged by him, began a regular writing practice between acting jobs: short stories, plays, more poetry than I can recall; always poetry – I have an engraved Moleskine at home full of these personal noodlings. When I die, I dread to think of my family going through them. 

     In my thirties, frustrated with the quality of scripts I was reading (I am also an actor), I began to write screenplays and comedy pilots of my own. These would garner modest amounts of interest from the powers that be at television channels, but never reached fruition and they are now consigned to my ‘oh well’ drawer.

    In truth, it was only shock, when my father was given a terminal cancer diagnosis back in 2015, that propelled me into writing seriously. I think it made me reassess what my life and what I was waiting for. I tentatively started the novel that was to become This Fragile Earth, and discovered I loved everything about the daily practice of writing: the space and time long-form prose gave me in my head, the agency I had over my characters and the world-building. I haven’t stopped writing since.

     What are you promoting now?

    This Fragile Earth is my debut, and the hardback is out on 24th June of this year. It’s a post-apocalyptic survival story about a mother, Signy, and her six-year-old son, Jed, who following a tragic event, are forced to flee near-future London and travel to the Midlands to seek out the protagonist’s mother. When they get there, however, things are far worse than they could ever have imagined. The book is a grounded science fiction thriller, with at its centre, the beating heart between the two main characters.

If you’re a fan of John Wyndham, or perhaps Emily St Mandel’s Station Eleven, this is the book for you.

Susannah Wise: My Writing Process, my fragile earth

A bit about your process of writing, how do you do your structure, and do you plan or just write?

 I find it very hard to talk about ‘process’ when discussing art of any kind. I know some people are good at it, I’m not. I’ve written three books and for each one the process has been different. With This Fragile Earth the plot came to me quickly over the course of one night. With only a few small tweaks, I set about writing it directly from the ideas bubbling in my head. I already had a decent grounding in some of the themes in the book, although I made up almost all the ‘science’ myself. I even dreamt one of the main coding theories in there! In the course of completing it though, I did more research, attending lectures and reading books on the subject and so on. 

    My second novel, out next year, is a dark comedy about grief. When I set out writing it, I had no idea what it would be about, barring the bare bones. I had no plot, only two characters and not a clue what the ending would be. I took part in the Faber Academy novel-writing course over six months in 2018 and completed an entire first draft. I really loved the ‘pants-ing’ rather than ‘planning’ nature of this book, though it did mean rather a lot of editing once finished, of course!

    My third novel is set around some dodgy goings-on in a small village in Cumbria. Before I began, I had a plot, all the characters, and a location, and wrote out each point at the start. I did research on some elements in the book (I can’t say what they are here without giving the game away!), but the setting is a place very familiar to me, so that helped a lot. A few plot points have moved within the process of writing it, but basically, I am sticking to my initial ideas. I began during lockdown in April last year and am still going strong: I was hoping the first draft would be about 75K words, but I think it will be closer to 100K. Its completion has been hampered by home-schooling, preparing This Fragile Earth for publication, editing my second book, and the fact my partner has been away for seven months for work since January. It’s been slow-going, but I’m hoping the book is no worse for it. 

    I tend to write in the morning for two hours if I can, either at 9.30 straight after dropping my son at school, or after a walk or some sort of exercise, around 11. I find it very hard to write in the afternoon for some reason but will force myself to if I’ve been unable to complete my daily words beforehand. I’m also an actor, and auditioning and learning lines, as well as acting work itself, eats into a vast amount of writing time. Saying that, there is a lot of hanging around when one is filming, so I always take my laptop with me and use the time to catch up on my word count. It’s a brilliant and unexpected bonus and has made me far less resentful about all the ‘wasted’ hours actors endure.

Most of the time I am not filming and will write at the kitchen table (without music) or kneeling on the rug in our living room, using the coffee table as a desk. I get terrible dead feet after I stand up and will often hobble around comically for half an hour trying to eradicate the pins and needles. I have a special foam support for my wrists too, as I tend to get RSI after a long period of typing. My eyes do go a bit squiffy after a long session of intense focus. Basically, I’m falling to pieces.

What about word count?

    I tend to set myself a very achievable 500 words per day (five days a week) when I’m drafting. This will take me around an hour to an hour and a half. Then another hour perhaps of reviewing the previous day’s words. I prefer to set a low bar as I find I work better if I’m hitting my target than setting unrealistic goals, then spending the rest of the day beating myself up for my failures. This helps me stay motivated, which is important when undertaking such a vast piece of work. 

    When I’m editing a completed draft, I can easily spend three or four hours at my desk and hardly even notice where the time has gone. Even more if I have line edits back from my publisher. I once spent ten hours working on notes from my agent. I would strongly advise against this. 

What do you find hard about writing?

Ha. Well, this is a tricky one to answer, because without meaning to sound like a plonker, I really feel – for me at least – that writing is the best job in the world. I guess if I had to say a couple of things, one would be the loneliness (though ironically, this is also one of the things I love about writing). It can be a little isolating spending all day with only the people in your head for company, before going out for a walk alone. Sometimes 24 hours can pass and the only person I will have spoken to is my 11- year-old son. Love him as I do, he’s not a great dinner table conversationalist. 

The other thing I find difficult is the mental responsibility. By this I mean that like the expression ‘this book isn’t going to write itself’, the completion of any book is entirely in the hands of the author. The manuscript sits like a patient pet waiting for attention, but if there happen to be other things going on in life, it requires huge amounts of discipline and mental energy to carve out time to honour this. Some days the words fly out, some they are like sticks in a muddy dam. It’s important to know when to just close the computer and get one with something else

What do you love about writing?

What’s not to love?! I love that no one else is there making me write, it is entirely my own work, that ‘being left alone’ feeling. I love that it allows time for introspection. I gain a great sense of inner peace from its practice. On top of this, having a whole world in the palm of one’s hand is just the greatest feeling. There is huge satisfaction in putting words in order so that they have rhythm and cadence, just like music. The joy when one reads back a passage and thinks ‘hmm, that isn’t half bad,’ is like nothing else. 

More than this though, is the vast pride and sense of achievement from completing a novel, especially when one gets to see it type-set, or in its proof form, or better still the actual finished version. It is an object created outside oneself, to be held in the hands of others, taking them to new places, and will it live on long after the author is dead and gone. I still can’t quite get my head around this concept. 

This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise is out now in hardback by Gollancz.

 

My Writing Process Julie Shackman.

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I am a writer of feel-good romance and live to the North of Glasgow with my husband and two sons. I trained as a journalist and studied Communication & Media, but I always wanted to be an author. We  adopted a Romanian rescue puppy, who we named Cooper, just before Christmas and he is often my writing companion!

What you have written, past and present. 

A Secret Scottish Escape is my fifth published book. My first two novels, Rock My World and Hero or Zero, were published digitally by the London based publisher Not So Noble Books and my next novel after that, A Room at the Manor, was released by Allen & Unwin. Book number four, The McKerron Castle, was released in audio by Bolinda.

Years ago, I also had two children’s picture books published in Dublin, but I always wanted to write feel-good, escapist romance and that is the genre I love to read.

What you are promoting now. 

I am promoting my latest feel-good romance, A Secret Scottish Escape, which is being released by the wonderful HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter as an ebook on 21 May and in paperback on 19 August. I can’t wait to share the tale of Layla and Rafe!

A bit about your process of writing. 

I find it very difficult to write straight onto the PC, so I tend to write long-hand in one of my many notebooks (!) and then type it up. I usually go to my favourite tea shop to write, but since lockdown, that hasn’t been possible, so I have been learning to write on the sofa, in the kitchen and whilst staring out of the window in the office! I also have to have music playing. Listening to lyrics seems to work for me as well.

Do you plan or just write?

I used to be a real panster, but have got a little bit better since  my last couple of books. I haven’t been planning everything, but write more detailed notes now on character background, settings and where the story is headed.

What about word count?

I just tend to write the first draft, get it all down and then tweak polish and edit after that. if I can write about 1k-1,500 words a day, I’m pleased with that. The most I have ever written in a day was 4,500 words. I wouldn’t like to do that too often!

How do you do your structure?

I make lots of bullet points in my notebook, referring back to themes and characters. It can look rather chaotic, but it seems to turn out ok in the end!

What do you find hard about writing?

I procrastinate alot! I also have a habit of browsing through social media or reading the paper and then have to have a stiff word with myself.

What do you love about writing? 

I love creating worlds and characters that readers can hopefully lose themselves in. I think we all really need to be able to do that – especially now!

Advice for other writers. 

Don’t ever give up. Keep going, keep writing and keep reading. A published writer is an unpublished writer who never quit.

UK Amazon Link –

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Scottish-Escape-heartwarming-women-ebook/dp/B08T5WWNDR/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

US –

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Scottish-Escape-Julie-Shackman-ebook/dp/B08T5WWNDR/

 

THE BOOKS THAT CHANGED ME BY HÉLENE FERMONT 


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Ever since I was very young my parents instilled in me a love for literature. We had a big library room at the back of the house, with books by all kinds of authors, Swedish and international, filling the shelves. I distinctly recall my mother’s delight each time someone gave her a new book – she’d read and share it with the members of her book club. She went to great lengths preparing lovely delicious lunches and dressed up for the occasion. Back then, in the 80s, books were special and quite expensive. Some even impossible to get hold of. My parents queued up outside the biggest bookseller for hours on end one night in February every year to browse and buy new books by their favourite authors. They always bought new books for me and my brother and gave them to us on our birthdays. I still remember the excitement of reading a new book.
There are too many authors whose books I loved then, and regularly return to, to list here. My favourite books are the kind of books that linger in my heart and mind long after I’ve finished reading them. As the author of character driven Psychological Thrillers, and a huge fan of character focused books, the following books changed me and inspired me to write.

Loves Music Loves To Dance by Mary Higgins Clark
This book centres around personal ads, and was published before the Internet.
It highlights the dangers of meeting strangers and is a gripping story with great characters. I’ve read all her books and learn something new each time I return to them.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
After reading this intriguing and very graphic book, I became hooked on the sequels and, of course, the wonderful complex main character and storyline.

Small Town Girl by LaVyrle Spencer
The storyline centres around a famous singer who returns home to look after her mother. The characters are so vivid, complex and human I instantly felt and feel as if they could be part of my life. I always return to this author’s books to inspire me.

Hamilton Beach by Linda Olsson
This is a very sad book about grief and the grieving process, and how loss affects us when we least expect it. The book is written from the main character’s point of view and perspective of what happened years ago and the place they used to love. The characters and emotional journeys are wonderful as is the beautiful scenery. This is a hard book to read but very relatable for people in a similar situation. The author’s books centre around universal topics and unexpected life changing events.

Yes Of Course It Hurts When Buds Are Breaking by Karin Boye
Karin Boye’s one of Sweden’s most famous author and poet. This is my favourite poem as it touches my heart in numerous ways.The words and sentiments are beautiful, very relatable and sad. I think of my beloved parents and all the wonderful times we had together. This was their favourite poem as well.

 

 

My Writing Process: Maame Blue

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writer, Maame Blue, bad loveWhat you have written, past and present 

After 4 years of writing it, my debut novel Bad Love has finally been published by Jacaranda Books! It was a bit of a travelling manuscript too because I wrote parts of it in London, New York and Melbourne. Aside from the novel, I’ve written short stories about a grandmother losing her memory, and a couple grieving the unexpected loss of a child. I’ve also written creative nonfiction about the perils of dating as a black woman living in Australia, and the experience of being a young psychotherapist. Presently, I’ve just written a piece for an anthology called Visual Verse, where writers are given an image and one hour to write a corresponding piece to it. This one was especially important to me as it was in tribute to the Grenfell tower victims and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

What you are promoting now

Right now I’m promoting my debut novel Bad Love – published by Jacaranda Books as part of their #Twentyin2020 initiative (to publish 20 Black British Writers in 2020), and it’s also available as an audiobook. Bad Love tells the story of Ghanaian-Londoner Ekuah and her tumultuous experience with first love, and how her subsequent relationships and those of her parents, eventually shape her identity.

A bit about your process of writing

Until a couple of years ago, my writing process involved fitting it around whatever full time job I had at the time. But more recently, I try to sit down and write on Fridays. I’ll have some herbal tea, pull out a notebook of a work in progress (I probably have too many of those) and then put a song on repeat that I feel best resonates with whatever I’m writing about. If I can get into that headspace for at least a couple of hours, I feel like I’ve done something, even if I only manage to get a sentence down.

writer, Maame Blue, bad love, book

Do you plan or just write?

I’m a great planner in life but not so much in my writing. If I mapped out a structure, I guarantee whatever I end up writing will be bad, because it automatically makes it feel like work. Instead I might have an idea for something, some story, with a very loose framework. I will have a vague idea of where I want it to go, but I keep it brief enough so that when I start writing and it goes in another direction, that’s ok.

What about word count?

I actually enjoy a word count. That might come from my other work in project management, but it’s the only sort of hard structure that my writing positively responds to. And the shorter the word count, the better – I like a challenge!

How do you do your structure?

Again, I’m a bit structureless. But if I’m commissioned to write something, I usually respond quite well to a theme or prompt as that tends to focus my mind a little more. With Bad Love for example, I knew that I wanted to write about complicated relationships, from one young woman’s perspective. The idea was to explore the multiple facets of love as it shows itself in relationships between people, and how each element impacts a person’s personality. But I felt that the strongest way to do that was to write it from an intimately personal perspective, showing the pitfalls and the small joys as they happen.

What do you find hard about writing?

Mostly it’s finding the time to write and giving it enough space to develop. There’s something I’m working on at the moment that I have to get into the zone for, so sometimes competing writing deadlines make that difficult. 

What do you love about writing?

The magic of creating characters from scratch and building an emotional world that hopefully resonates with the reader – positively or negatively. I don’t mind which, as long as it makes you feel something!

 

Maame Blue is part of Jacaranda’s #Twentyin2020 initiative. Her debut novel Bad Love is available to buy online, at Foyles and all good Indie bookshops, and as an Audible audiobook. https://maamebluewrites.com / @MaameBlueWrites

 

My Writing Process Helen E Field

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The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub , Helen E Field, writing, writer, how I write. My mother once told me that when I was 10yrs old I informed her I was not going to have a ‘boring life.’ Well, I guess I must have succeeded because according to most people I know, I have led a very interesting life. Important for a writer I think. To me, I’ve just lived it exactly how I wanted – a free spirit if you will. ‘work hard, play hard’ could well be my motto. I started writing funny poems about all my classmates at school from the age of ten and I haven’t stopped writing them ever since. I have a business writing bespoke funny poems for and about people and I used my ability to write these funny poems to publish a range of greetings cards. I also began a journal at ten and nearly 50 years later I am still writing it – I have an old sea chest full of them! At school I was often picked out by my English teacher to stand up in front of the class and read the essay I had written; the one that I recall even now, was entitled ‘The Goldfish Who Could Speak.’  The class were in stitches!

I left school at sixteen and worked in retailing and hospitality. I started my own hospitality training consultancy in 1998, training managers and staff all over the UK, Europe and USA and speaking at conferences. One strand of the business was to design and implement mystery shopper programmes. It was the trigger for my debut novel ‘The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub.’

I have three incredibly talented grown-up children and a saintly husband! Pre-Covid, we embarked on some serious travelling around the world – clearly curtailed for the past ten months but we’ll be off again as soon as we are permitted! 

What you have written, past and present.

I have had numerous professional articles published in various hospitality publications over the years. One article in particular when published was deemed ‘an important academic paper’ which thrilled me, given I’d never gone to university. I wrote the entire article in one hit of 8,000 words in one evening and they didn’t change a single word! 

I completed The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub last Autumn and am currently writing the second book in the series, which I hope will be out by late Spring.

What you are promoting now.

I am promoting my debut novel The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub, for which I also wrote a free download called ‘The Big Dilemma’ that readers can access at the end of the book. It is women’s humorous fiction. I would say that you have to have a sense of humour and not be overly politically correct to enjoy it!

I do not have social media – my choice – which makes promoting a bit more challenging. I’m a face-to-face kinda gal and would much prefer to talk about the book in person or on the radio, but Covid has put a stop to that.

A bit about your process of writing. 

I don’t honestly think I have a process. I just write when I feel like it for as long as I want to. When I’m really in the flow, I can write for hours at a time without stopping. If I don’t feel like it, I don’t write. It’s pointless. When both my brothers were diagnosed with prostate cancer and my mother developed Alzheimer’s all in the same year, I was very flat and exhausted. I just couldn’t write ‘funny’, so I left my manuscript for a year and went back to it, when I felt more in control of things.

Do you plan or just write?

I would say I was more of a ‘seat of the pants’ writer. The only thing I could remotely describe as planning, is that I decide what I want the ending to be and kind of work out how to get there! My stories are very visual – a number of readers commented that they thought the book would make a great TV/film. I often think of ‘scenes’ that I know I want to include – particularly the mystery shopping assignments, which have been based on real life assignments that I have actually done myself or been de-briefed about by an assessor. They are very funny, not least because they have actually happened.

What about word count?

I never even considered word count when I started writing my first book. I literally just wrote it exactly as I wanted. When I finished it was around 120,000 words. I discovered afterwards that that was a lot of words for a book of my genre. I had to do some ruthless editing that made me weep as I removed whole chapters and chunks of writing to get it down – even now it’s around 105,000 and 443 pages long.

This has provided me with a problem I hadn’t anticipated.The print cost of a book of this size is significant, but to sell at a price similar to ‘competing’ novels I will be making very little money indeed on paperbacks.

Big lesson for me for book number two – keep an eye on word count!

How do you do your structure?

I am a story teller and I think my book reflects that. I never sat down and thought ‘how am I going to structure this novel?’ I just wrote the story it as it came to me. I would get to the end of a section and think, OK so what would be really funny to happen now? Then I wrote it. On editing, I made a few changes if I thought that the flow of the story wasn’t quite right, but really nothing major.

What do you find hard about writing?

I really don’t find anything about writing hard. I genuinely don’t understand writers who say they sit at their laptops struggling to get words out. I write so prolifically and easily it’s a mystery to me.

What do you love about writing? 

I love making up stories. It’s a bit like being a child again I suppose. In the real world we can’t pretend, but in stories you can create whatever crazy characters and wild incidents you like. It’s like creating escapism for yourself and for others to enjoy and I do like making people laugh.

Advice for other writers. 

My genuine advice to other writers is likely to get me into trouble from the many organisations that offer writing courses, advice, manuscript assessment etc etc. It is easy to forget that it is in all these people’s financial interests to tell you your writing isn’t good enough. For me there is only one group of people who have the authority to tell me that and that’s my readers. No-one else matters.

I can truthfully say that if I had read all the articles and advice about how to write before I started my book, I would never have written it. I would have been paralysed by indecision over absolutely everything. Never in my life have I come across such contradictions, nonsense rules, imposition of politically correct notions or subjectivity,  in an industry. This became the main reason I decided to go down the self-published route. 

I came across a quote many years ago, which I had printed on cards and gave them to my children as a good rule to live their lives by. It’s not a bad one for writers either.

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” 

Leonardo da Vinci

The Mystery Shopper & The Hot Tub is out on the 14th of January and is available from amazon.co.uk

 

 

My Writing Process Alex Knight

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Howdy, all! I’m author Alex Knight — best known for my genre-warping fiction whose popularity commonly crashes global markets. Also, my humility. I used to be a ghostwriter for romance novellas and science fiction novels, but these days I write my own books, primarily in the genres of Fantasy and LitRPG. 

What I’ve written, past and present?

Aside from my ghostwriting work — which I can’t legally talk about — my work includes the Nova Online trilogy, a sci-fi, LitRPG adventure we like to bill as “Halo meets Ready Player One.” If you’re into science fiction, RPGs, and coming of age tales that pit their protagonists against tyrannical, dystopian governments, then you’ll probably dig it. Did I mention it takes place in the real world and a video game? I like to think it’s a lot of fun.

What you are promoting now?

Most recently, I’ve taken a pivot into Fantasy with my debut fantasy thriller, The Far Wild. It’s a classic adventure story about skyships and expeditions gone awry in the most dangerous wilderness known to man. It’s full of beasties with too many teeth, bombastic characters, and beasties with too many teeth trying to eat bombastic characters. Of course, there’s a bit of espionage, too, and no story is complete without a dose of looming societal upheaval, right? I grew up loving Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and The Lost World, and The Far Wild is my love letter to those stories. It’s been released as an Audible Original, which means it’s an audiobook and Audible brought in an incredible cast to voice the main characters. I wrote the words, but my goodness did the narrators bring them to life!

A bit about your process of writing?

Consistent. Simplistic. A gift to all humankind — just a few descriptors I wouldn’t use to describe my writing process. Realistically, writing is a wild process and how I do it changes every couple of months. Some things stay the same (butt in chair, music up loud, world ignored), but I’ve found if I write in one place for more than a few weeks my creativity fizzles up. I like to bounce between writing on a desk at home, on the couch, out on the balcony. Or, better yet, in libraries and cafes. Of course, that hasn’t really been an option with Covid, so I’ve taken to placing a camp chair in different, odd places around the house and pretending I’m somewhere else. It’s amazing how well you can tune out your surroundings with the power of noise cancelling headphones and loud, loud music.

Do you plan or just write?

You know, I’ve experimented with both ways. When I was a ghostwriter, I had to plan ahead of time so the client could understand and write off on the story. With practice, though, I’ve found that planning too much ahead of time stifles creativity in a story. I now much prefer to write out a loose plot, then follow it vaguely as I write and make sure I let my mind go where it’d like. That’s where the magic is found in writing, in my opinion. Right on that line between what you planned and where your creativity wants to take you.

What about word count?

I aim for 2,000 words a day, which is a reasonable, sustainable rate for me, and track my progress via a project tracker spreadsheet. Lately, though, I’ve been finding it easier to simply paste chapters into a manuscript first draft document as I write them. This way, I have it to refer to for an up-to-date word count, chapter word count, and it’s super easy to make control + find changes. 

How do you do your structure?

I learned pretty much everything I know about structure and plotting from 1. reading books I enjoy and 2. K.M. Weiland’s website. There’s a bunch of great resources there and I recommend it for every aspiring author. There’s a particularly useful chart on the site that outlines the basic three act structure most stories follow. I like to put my own spin on this by weaving a lot of questions into the story, then answering them bit by bit as the plot progresses. This helps me keep the story moving quickly and make it satisfying as we’re on a constant drip feed of answers.

What do you find hard about writing?

The desire to do it as well as I can. There’s always that voice inside saying “you could do this better,” or “you should have written this this way.” Silencing that voice is key to finishing, well, anything you write. There’s always a compromise you must find between quality and speed. You could blaze the book out in a month or you could take forever doing edits and rewrites. The sweet spot lies somewhere between those, and finding it is a unique journey for each book.

What do you love about writing?

The act of doing it. Creation. I love nothing more than sitting down, cranking the music, and diving into a fantasy world to find out what happens next. Fingers tapping on the keyboard, cursor flying across the page — that’s what I live for. When you’re at that perfect spot between a tight plot and a loosely planned story, magic happens. You surprise even yourself, watching the plot unfurl in unexpected ways. In that way, I, as an author, get to experience the story in a fresh way. It’s much better than knowing every twist and turn ahead of time.

The Far Wild by Alex Knight is available exclusively on Audible now.

 

The surprising Scandinavian approaches to child-rearing by Alex Dahl

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alex dahl, author, writer, childrearing, playdate‘Playdate’ by Alex Dahl is published on 1st October by Head of Zeus 

 In the Scandinavian countries, children are raised quite differently than in the UK and most of the rest of the world, where fear culture feels more prevalent- fear of strangers, accidents, legal action, bad weather- the list goes on. The Scandi approach is rather less fussy and children are given an almost baffling level of freedom. They are expected to get to and from school alone, often from the age of six, sometimes walking a considerable distance, come rain or shine (or more likely, blizzards.) In the winter it is pitch-black dark when they leave home. 

When I was a child growing up in Norway, my mother’s policy was- spend most of your time outdoors, and if there’s a problem- fix it. I had a pocket full of band-aids and a bus pass, plus a few tried-and-tested recipes for afternoon snacks.

As an adult, and a domestic-noir/psychological thriller writer, I draw inspiration from the Scandinavian countries’ laissez-faire attitude, and will gladly admit that it’s rather convenient that certain plotlines, which may seem unlikely to happen in the UK are perfectly feasible in Norway. Like being asked to take a little boy home on a stormy evening, whose parents have failed to turn up- the very premise for my debut thriller, The Boy at the Door. It’s happened to me, more than once, and I’ve also turned up to pick up my kids from somewhere, only to be told that they’ve already been collected by ‘so-and-so’s dad’ or random uncle, whom I’ve never met. Or like sending your child on a sleepover when you’ve only briefly met the parents once, a decision that has disastrous consequences in my new thriller, Playdate.

I ended up doing some involuntary research when my own daughter went briefly missing during the edits of Playdate. I had recently returned to Norway and was adjusting to the Scandinavian style of parenting after a stint in London. I allowed my then nine-year-old daughter to take a bus alone home with a friend to the friend’s house after school. I was in my office, working on the book, when the mother of the friend called, several hours later. She asked whether the girls had gone to ours. Floored by panic, I explained they had definitely gone to theirs, and she said- well, they can’t have as the alarm was activated and the dog shut away in one room, and the first thing the girls would do when they get home is deactivate the alarm and let the dog out. 

The other mother immediately started to comb the neighborhood for them while I rushed over. We were about to phone the police, when she went into a local shop to ask whether the girls had been in, and another customer overheard, saying he’d seen two little girls in the nearby forest, trying to free a ride-on pink Barbie truck from thick mud. The girls had refused offers of help, having been drilled on the dangers of strangers… I got my girl home, but had never known such fear, and I went back over Playdate and infused it into the mother of the missing girl.

Playdate by Alex Dahl is available here. 

 

My Writing Process Alex Hart

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Alex Hart, my writing routine, my writing process, author, writer, Take Me Home, My Writing Routine:

I’ve written since an early age, whether it was short stories, poems (dreadful ones!), or novels. I read voraciously and love many genres. I have worked in the film and television industry for over twenty five years and have always felt passionate about story telling whether on screen or in books. To be able to disappear into someone else’s world, even temporarily and experience a different life is something that will never lose its thrill.

What you have written, past and present.

I’m currently working on a couple of novels, one which is the next in the series of Take Me Home, and another which is a standalone thriller. 

What you are promoting now.

Take Me Home is a mystery thriller. The main character Harper finds a young girl left alone in a New York store and sets out to find out where she has come from. No one has reported her missing yet the little girl May says she misses her mom. Harper is someone who is strong and feisty. She paints outside of the lines, yet relentlessly strives for the truth. Despite her outwardly spiky edges, she is sensitive and warm-hearted. I hope she is someone the reader enjoys spending time with, along with her friends TJ and Reggie (the yin to her yang, the cheese to her macaroni) as they try to unravel the mystery along with her. It raises the questions, ‘What would we do in that situation?’ ‘How far would we go for strangers and those we love?’ and ‘What constitutes family?’ 

A bit about your process of writing.

I’m pretty disciplined when I have a project I’m working on. My day usually starts at the gym (before Covid!) where I am waking up my brain and beginning to think about the task ahead. Once I am at my desk, I often turn off my phone so there are less distractions and set to on that day’s goal. If I have the book planned out, I’ll always aim to write a chapter a day; even if I know what I’m writing is trash. If I started to edit as I went along, I think I would come to a grinding halt. If there is something on the page, I at least have words to play with. 

Do you plan or just write?

I always plan. I don’t know any other way. For me, a plan is a safe way of being able to go off piste sometimes, as I know I can always refer back to it. Things often change when you’re writing; either something you are sure was going to work, suddenly falls apart in your hands, or you get further inspiration meaning the story changes direction. I think, so long as you have a plan you can explore these options without going off on a tangent too much. 

What about word count?

I really don’t think about it in the first draft. I just want to get the bones of the story down and I’ll worry about word count later. Often or not, it just works out at the right length. 

How do you do your structure?

I always work with paper and pen at the beginning, just writing down notes, random thoughts, character traits etc and once I am able to formulate a basic beginning, middle and end, I begin to scratch out a structure. If I get stuck, I always refer back to the usual; Joseph Campbell, Christopher Vogler, Robert McKee, Syd Field, Dan Harman. I’ll re-read what they’re saying and think how my story and characters fit and start penning out a potential paradigm. 

What do you find hard about writing?

When I lose confidence! There’s nothing worse than facing the day thinking ‘something isn’t working’, ‘I’m the worst writer known to man’, ‘what was I thinking even attempting this?!’ I think this happens to all writers at some point of their journey. You’re all alone in this room, with your imaginary characters (who you have become close to and feel you are letting down) and you only have yourself to argue with. When those days come, (and they do!) rather than give up and beat myself up further, I make myself write 100 words. Often or not, I’ll end up writing more and suddenly you’re up and running again. 

What do you love about writing?

Everything except for the above days! 

Advice for other writers.

The same any writer gives, read, read, read, write, write, write. For me, there is no other way. My motto has always been, ‘Get it down, then get it done. Get it written, then get it right.’

 

TAKE ME HOME by Alex Hart is published by Orion (Paperback, £7.99) on 1st October.