A week ago I started work on a little idea that had popped into my head. The first draft of my latest novel completed, I found myself free to embark on something different, fresh. In my last post I made reference to ‘a new story’ that seemed to be writing itself.
All week I have been dreaming the story overnight, writing it during the day – normally first thing in the morning, before breakfast and the family is up. The result is that less than seven days later I have written over 12,000 words of this something-or-nothing. I know how the next perhaps 20,000 are going to play out in terms of plot. And I know I want to write them. It feels like a novella –
– and I can’t remember the last time I felt this driven by a new idea.
Whatever else this proves to be, right now it’s quite remarkable.
[As we today moved many miles inland and are no longer staying on the coast, ‘La Rochelle’ is an inaccurate title for this post, but for the same of continuity and keeping this linked with the past, I’ll stick with it now. If I hadn’t said anything, you’d be assuming I was still writing there, right?]
Ian Gouge - Writer 