One Year, Two Books

The New Mother by Julia Crouch
The Daughters by Julia Crouch

How long does it take to write a novel?

My first book Cuckoo took me my entire life up to that point. The next three: Every Vow You Break, Tarnished and The Long Fall took me a year each. The fifth, her Husband’s Lover, thanks to a false start, took two years. Then the sixth took four years to write. Indeed, it needs another draft, which I will attend to soon, but I don’t want to talk about that now.… read more

About Plotting and Planning

Last week I ran a three-hour MA class on plotting at City University. Apart from being one of the scariest things I have ever said yes to (and I admit this as a constant yes-person), planning the session coincided with a small sea-change in my working process.

If you have even glanced at some of my previous posts, you will have gleaned that, in NaNoWriMo parlance, I am a pantser, not a plotter.… read more