How I write: Gabrielle Lord
I'm not superstitious. But once a commitment to a work is made, there does seem to be a lot of serendipity synchronicity
For me, a book usually starts with a question the answer then leads to more questions and so on until gradually the story builds up into shape.
Death Delights came out of Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead" -- I was lying on the floor late one night listening to this eerie programmatic piece when Dr Jack McCain 'walked' into my studio with his grief and his obsession...
Gemma Lincoln from the series came from a question: What happens to the children of murdered mothers? Especially when the killer is the children's father...?
I don't socialize; I don't waste time doing things I don't want to. I'm not sure if I'm prolific I generally do a book a year but currently I'm engaged on a huge Young Adult project for Scholastic. It's a 12 volume thriller, which means a book (at least to first draft stage) every two months! Even though the books are only 30,000 words each, it's still a huge job. At the moment, I'm writing first draft of Book 9 while also working with my editor on Book 1. I'm also jotting down notes for other non-existent books as ideas arise.
I now have a room of research notes etc and can find things pretty quickly also a few phone numbers I can call detectives, spooks, pathologists, that sort of thing...But I have no hesitation in picking up the phone and asking for help taking experts out to lunch, asking questions, making notes.... I've learned how to grow (BA) anthrax, but fortunately not how to weaponise it...
I've done work experience in a small, busy security business, Ive handled a .38 and a Smith & Wesson I've spend time with the police dogs (the kind that bark, not the other sort...spent time at the morgue, hours in lectures on Anatomy and Forensic Science etc I take research very very seriously.
Once I've finished a first draft, I see the mess I'm in. And that's when I start rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. I like this stage because I've got something to work with, not the blank paper any more. I drop scenes that are boring, or that don't push the story along or that aren't "active" enough. Actors say "when the actor sits down on the stage, the play sits down, too" and it's the same with prose scenes. I try to keep them on the move.
Bryce Courtney talks about "bum glue": that means just staying at the desk. I don't leave the house until I've done my "darg" one thousand words. Sometimes, I do more, but I"m not 'allowed out' until the thousand mark. When it's all running smoothly I love it. When it's giving me blisters, I grizzle and go for walks.
I have five books lined up knocking at the back of my head saying "What about me? When are you going to do me?". I think writers' block is just another idea to get attached to, another avoidance technique. If you sit down and work out your story, your characters, and then do a story treatment, and then break up the story into chunks, chapters, and do an outline of each chapter, there's no need for writers' block.
Creativity comes from life itself. Every human being (not to mention other creatures) has this gift as part of their inheritance. Its simply a matter of discovering who, what and how you want to express this. It is something like the soul singing its gratitude for being.
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