I have always found that when it comes to books, there are easy and hard stages of the writing. First of all, the starting can be hard. Just building up the momentum to get over the first 5,000 words can be hard work. However then, I find that the next 50% of the book is generally okay. You get the story idea all mapped out and generally write all the immediately obvious fun bits. Then the next 30% is harder. This is where you fill in the bits that are necessary for plot progresion, but aren’t as much fun to write. This is probably the point where a lot of people who try and write a book find their enthusiasm for the project fizzles out and they give up. Finally the last 20% pretty much writes itself. This is where new sub-plots and cunning ideas suggest themselves, and the book suddenly gains momentum again and writing progresses rapidly again. Often in this final stage, the book lengthens and develops beyond the original synopsis. It’s a good stage of the writing process, and one which I do like.

Currently I’m in the final 20% stage of the book. It’s nearly finished, though by adding in little bits here and there, it’s growing in size. I’m going to take a break today, not least because I got up late (I didn’t get to bed until 4:30am last night) and I’m out to visit some people for a meal this evening, and I’ve been asked to go around from about 4:00pm. I’m going to walk there, as it is only twenty minutes’ walk away, and this means that I can safely have a drink of wine whilst there.

This evening I’m going to be starting discussions over what the cover art should be like. I have ideas in my head, but it will be interesting to see what the graphic designer makes of it all, especially as they haven’t read the book (well, technically only I have read the full thing at this point, because I’m still writing it).

I’m hoping that by the end of the weekend, I can have this book finished and can put it to one side for a week or two whilst I do some other work then I’ll return to it for the editing process.