You'll know, for a couple of years or more, I've been working on a book. Why? I met a man at the London Boat Show some time back, a novelist of repute who was the mate of a mate of mine. I happened upon them both and struck up a conversation. Eventually I got around to asking; how come you've written so many books? He'd done a couple of dozen and counting, and one I'd read. He answered that he was never completely happy and liked to start another straight off. When I asked, HOW do you write a whole novel, he said: just start, it's easy. Just start at the beginning and let them do the talking. I wandered off to the Guinness stand, as you do, to think about it. Later on the train to wherever, oblivious of the talk of yachts and sport, as I know a little of one but nothing of the other, I began to form a plot. What did I know about? I'm not interested in Sci-fi, horror, fantasy, detectives or who-dun-its, aga-sagas or erotica, contemporary urban angst, sloppy romance or sentimental soul searching. I avoid celebrity garbage, cooks, gossip, tabloids and TV altogether. What do I read apart from pilot books and real-life adventure? Not much but I like Ian Fleming and Robert Louis Stevenson and Conrad and one or two current authors; CJ Sansom and Iain Pears. All right, and Cornwell and O'Brian naturally. So there; action, adventure, espionage, history, and a bit of sailing. By the time I got to bed I'd got the whole thing laid out. All I needed to do was write the thing. That was what, five, six years ago? Much has happened but I have all but finished book one. Being of an ambitious nature of course, I've started book two and can see it being a trilogy - at least. What I might have done is create a character, without setting out to do so, who could run in a literary sense. A world or part of a world, set some time ago, which covers war, international and personal intrigue, love, hate, tragedy and triumph. Have I got you interested? Do you want to know more?
Talk to you again soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment