Hello Bernard and thanks for allowing me to contact you. I am a great fan and I just wanted to ask you a few questions, hopefully they don't sound bad or personal. I was just wondering how long on average it takes you to think of a plot, stick with the plot, make all the characters up and then write the story. Is writing for you like an 8 hour day? do you have breaks while you write and how much research do you do before you feel confident enough that you won't make historical inaccuracy (which is a worry for me in case I slip up on something important) sorry for all the non stop questions I was just curious how you do it. For me, thinking of a plot is a very hard and worrying motion, trying to find the best plot in my head is time consuming and usually I change it. Writing the actual story for me is hard work to, but then again I suppose writing isn't supposed to be easy. Thank you for the lovely reads, looks like I'm off to do some more medieval clothes material research for my story.....have always wanted to do historical fiction like you. your writing style is so enjoyable to read. Have fun and happy writing!
Andrew Orrow
Some writers (lucky people) know their plot before they start a book, but I'm one of those who don't have a clue. E.L. Doctorow cleverly said that writing a novel is like driving on an unfamiliar and winding country road at night with very dim headlights, and you can only see as far ahead as those inadequate lights reveal - and that's true for me, so you end up discovering wrong turnings and dead ends, and go back again and again, and again and again, however many times it takes. I usually reckon that the first two thirds of a book will be rewritten about seven times . . . the last third ought to be a bit easier because by then you can see the road's ending (you hope). But writing on a computer - well, they're not separate drafts as they used to be with a typewriter. I go back a hundred times a day and change something . . . As for research? Research never really stops; I'm continually researching - if not for the book I'm currently writing, then for the one I'll write next, or that I'll write a year or two from now. I've been reading history since I was a child, and all that reading contributes to what I do. However - when thinking about a new book I'll spend some months reading in a very concentrated way, though how long and how much depends on the book.