Authors Electric

I know, this title reads like a children's story. If only. Life has got a bit serious for many of us: the tribulations of a travel writer are nothing when compared to so many. I'm fortunate. I don't need the income from my travel writing to put food on the table. For those who do - life must have become impossible. Where can they go? What can they write about? We are used taking our safety into account: we generally give serious social unrest a wide berth and don't put ourselves in the path of animals that might eat us. (Well, I did, once - but not deliberately). Speaking for myself: I am fascinated by the minutiae of people's lives - wherever they are and whatever their circumstances. I will oppose poverty tourism (gawping at mud huts or rows of metal beds in orphanages) till the day I die, but will defend anyone who spends hours round a fire listening to singing, and dancing, and telling stories. For me, those stories are the life-blood of travelling. But what...

I've been home from Malawi for a few weeks now, and a little ebook about my travels is taking shape. At the same time, I've been trying to market a novel. And this has got me thinking. Although the novel was inspired by a vignette I found in the museum in Hokitika, New Zealand, most of it is made up. I had to find characters in my own head. I went through the long process of getting to know them all, how they spoke, why they did what they did. It's a long unravelling - and I loved it. I love the unpicking of a character and throwing them into new places - I have notebooks full of scribbles as I let each character find his or her voice, and only then did I know them well enough to drop them into the novel. Then came the task of inviting the reader to go through a comparable process - of meeting each character, unpicking why they do what they do, even responding on an emotional level. (Looking back, I think there is still one character that I don't know well eno...