By about chapter six of 'Wolf Brother,' I was having so much fun that I knew I wanted it to go on and I couldn't tell Torak's story in one book. So I sat down, and it took me about a week to plan in broad outline all six books.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I treated the first few books as a very long journalistic exercise. I thought of every chapter as an article that needed to be finished.
With the novels, I try to write a few pages a day - it doesn't sound much, but it can be difficult if I'm not sure where the story is going.
If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.
I read in a weird way. It comes in waves, and then I start, like, five different books at once. It takes me six months to a year to finish them all, since I read mostly on planes.
That was the - It was an exciting time because it was as though I was sort of tied up in a paper bag or in a gunny sack with a rope around the neck of it, and all of a sudden with the acceptance of that first book everything sort of spilled out!
It had to be a book that held my attention and kept me wanting to read it; when my husband finished 'The Road', I started it straight away and didn't put it down until I finished - it was such an achievement and relief to know that I could read, comprehend and, most importantly, enjoy a book!
I plot the first 5 or 6 chapters quite minutely, and also the end. So I know where I am going but not how I'm going to get there, which gives characters the chance to develop organically, as happens in real life as you get to know a person.
I just finished my 11th book last week, so I'm ready to start the next one.
I wrote each book in thirty-five days flat - just to get the darned thing finished.
I think I wrote 'The Trysting Place' in about three weeks. But it was inexperience that made me have to do that. I didn't feel good about the book all the time I was writing it. It felt a bit like wading through molasses.