Notes from the writing desk

Progress notes

A short, ongoing log of the author's own editing stages and craft milestones, drawn from the newsletter archive.

December 2017

The cover for Come A Little Closer is shared with newsletter subscribers ahead of its mid-February 2018 release.

February 2019

The Shape Of Lies is published, featuring Anna and DCI Tom Douglas.

The craft of writing a novel rarely begins with the story itself. Most writers start with a fragment of feeling, an image, or a question that lingers long enough to demand attention. From there, the slow architecture of plot emerges, shaped by character and place until the narrative finds its own momentum. Drafting is rarely linear; it moves sideways and backward as the writer tests which version of the truth a scene can carry. The result is a manuscript that has been lived with, revised, and returned to again and again until the prose feels inevitable rather than manufactured.

Editing is where a book truly becomes itself, and the process is both exacting and humbling. A first draft tends to reveal what the writer needed to say, while subsequent passes refine how those discoveries are shared. Sentence rhythm, subtext, and pacing each demand separate attention, and the willingness to cut beloved passages often separates a finished novel from a merely complete one. Readers respond to clarity of intent as much as to surprise, and that clarity is rarely accidental. It arrives through patient revision, considered feedback, and the quiet discipline of returning to the page with fresh eyes.

Publishing transforms a private manuscript into a public object, and the journey is longer than many writers anticipate. From commissioning a cover to final proofs, each decision shapes how a book is received before a single page is read. Marketing sits alongside craft rather than apart from it, asking authors to articulate the emotional promise of their work in language that travels beyond their own bookshelf. Events, interviews, and reader conversations extend the life of a novel far beyond its release date. The publishing years are rarely glamorous, but they remain a privilege, connecting the solitary act of writing to the wider world of readers who make it worthwhile.

Writers often speak of a life spent between projects, in the liminal space where one book has been released and the next has not yet declared itself. That interval holds research, reading, and the slow germination of new ideas, along with the necessary recovery from the intensity of finishing. Friends, family, and fellow writers provide ballast during this period, offering perspective when the next story refuses to come. Travel, observation, and quiet routines feed the imagination in ways that cannot be rushed. The writing life is, at its heart, a practice of attention, sustained over years through curiosity, patience, and an enduring faith in the next sentence.