Last night I took some photographs of my Piranesi in Montserrat book. This is one that I particularly like.

At the moment I am finding it difficult to find a balance between researching and writing my next book. I´m not sure when to stop doing the research and start doing the writing. There is a sense that if I haven´t completed all the research before I start writing, I will have to go back and edit everything out because it will be wrong. Waiting until I have collected all the necessary facts and details seems like the logical thing to do. However, it doesn´t fit with how I work as a writer, nor with the method I used to write More House, through which I left myself open to all and any influences around me -- what I was reading, who I´d been speaking to that day, what was on the radio, the dream I´d had the night before etc. The plan to use a different method with the second novel doesn´t seem to be working. Instead I just want to write and write about whatever comes up for me on any given writing day, and then afterwards go back and clean everything up.

Perhaps every writer must find their own method and perfect it, rather than trying to write using the methods he or she assumes other writers use. I always picture a writer sitting at a light-flooded desk that overlooks a deserted beach, writing from morning till night. Who are these people? My reality seems so far away from that romantic ideal, but at the same time, unlike what I felt prior to finishing More House, it is not something I lament. Novels get written, with or without giant windows.

More House

I´m new. My first novel is due out in the spring. It´s called More House. On this blog I´d like to record the process of publishing -- what it feels like, what it involves, what I learn along the way, the things that annoy me, the things that please me.

At the moment I am completing an Author Questionnaire. Most of the questions are not questions a writer can answer very honestly -- how does your book differ to other books in its field? for example. I see an array of different influences, most of them not literary, that have helped me to write better, but I don´t have the necessary objectivity to be able to compare what I´ve written to what somebody else has written.

Today I received an email from a fellow writer who warned me of the dangers of speaking too freely during an interview. For him, just mentioning that he was listening to Hendrix on the day of an interview meant that for years afterwards his work was compared to Hendrix´s music. I think his advice is good, but knowing *when* someone is going to take your words and stretch the hell out of them, is not so easy.

Although getting published is mostly a confidence-boosting pleasure, it also has its risks. Knowing that once More House is out there it won´t be mine anymore, scares me. Knowing that reviewers can write anything they feel like writing, also scares me. But, once you have written a novel, if you do not get it published it hangs over you like a dark cloud and blocks the flow of new writing projects. I guess, then, that the risk of being criticized and misinterpreted is a small price to pay for the luxury of being free to write once again on a clean slate.