Authors Electric

  When it comes to writing a novel, I’m a planner not a pantster. Once I’ve got an idea, I can sit down and do a chapter by chapter synopsis. This isn’t necessarily the final version but it is more or less the shape the book will take. From then on it’s fairly straightforward. I sit down, I write and, when I have finished, I edit. The editing might involve a little re-structuring but it general this is fairly minor. That’s how I usually do it. With my current WIP the whole process is more like wrestling with an octopus.   There are so many tentacles to drag me down and when I escape from one, another is waiting to twist and tangle my thoughts. I have a basic narrative. I have characters that I'm growing to know and mostly to like, but it wasn't coming together and after 40,000 words I was at the point of giving up when I posted my dilemma on various writers’ forums and on Twitter. Fellow writers were quick to help. Some people suggested putting the m/s away for a while and...

There’s a wonderful clip on YouTube that shows an octopus disappearing into the background and becoming, as a consequence, invisible. This is an attribute shared by other cephalopods such as the cuttlefish, one of which I met whilst snorkelling in Indonesia. The water there is very clear, and the colourful marine life is plentiful and varied. I had a great time, swimming through shoals of tiny iridescent green fish, followed by shoals of even smaller blue ones. The seabed was packed with anemones and clams and coral and seaweed, in every colour and design you can imagine. Absolutely beautiful. And then, it seemed to me, a part of the sea floor about the length of my forearm detached itself and started to move in a sedate fashion beneath me. The cuttlefish is bottom left, using a fetching brown attire, and its tentacles are facing right. Intrigued, I swam closer, only to realise that it was a creature of some sort, as it seemed to have some small tentacles at one end. Event...