One-K Per Day… #amwriting #writing #bunchcourtney #crimefiction

I almost choked on my cornflakes when I heard Charlies Higson telling the radio presenter that he wrote the latest Bond book  On His Majesty’s Secret Service in just under a month.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is said to have penned AStudy in Scarlet in 3 weeks,  Kazuo Ishiguro wrote Remains of the Day in 4 weeks and  Anne Rice produced Interview with a Vampire in 5 weeks . Barbara Cartland infamously dictated 23 novels in a year (I have theories on that one but we draw a veil).

I am in awe of the ability these people have. My writing process is far slower of late and hearing of Higson’s feat I asked myself why that should be.

On a good day I know I used to have 6,000 words down in one day on a reasonably regular basis. Yes, they would need to be rewritten at least twice over to put in the words I heard in head but failed toad in, or  that I know how to spell perfectly well but which appear on the page in some (often vowel free for some reason) ancient language.

Yes, 6k used to be common for me – so what happened?

As reported by many writers I ground to a halt during lockdown, but unlike many writers I still haven’t got back up to speed. Lazy? Or just out of synch? Is it that I started to overthink things? Where I once slammed the words down and thought about them afterwards I can’t resist mulling over the plot and going back to tweak it all?

Who am I kidding!

Taped to my PC screen is a note that reads 1,000 WORDS A DAY!!! This was a goal I set myself in order to get something done on a deadline. It has been there so long that the tape holding it in place is curling at the edges. Worse it has become part of the furniture in a very real sense and  I have ceased to see it at all.

Prevarication is and always has been my problem.

If I got my bum in gear I could get this novel in a month … maybe …

Repeat after me One-K per day… One-K per day… One-K per day…

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