Week Thirty-One: Podcast On The Writing Process

This week for 52 Ways To Write A Novel, I've put down my thoughts in a sound file - be warned, this is the unpolished version.

I expect to use a snippet in my monthly 'Typeface' podcast, coming March 1st, which will contain interviews with other writers in my area. But first off the unedited version, complete with umms and ahhs, is available below on SoundCloud - rather better sound quality for you - or alternatively on Spreaker via this handy link to my Ad Hoc writing podcasts.

I've recorded this while on a writing retreat in an isolated one-bedroom cottage in Devon. (Anything to avoid writing my novel!) So my thoughts here include what it's like to be on a writing retreat, at least at the start, and include musings on the writer's voice, beginnings, structural tension, first draft looseness, dialogue, influences, and - as always - the threatening shadow of Novel Avoidance Syndrome.

I reference John Braine's method of first draft writing as 'red-hot' - it should, of course, have been 'white-hot'. Apologies!

Ten minutes long.