How I Got Started on My Novel

Last year, a friend asked me to show her how to set up and run a blog. Although this was something I had not done before, I worked out the basics of using WordPress and got her started. Now, Sherlock that I am, I deduced that she might enjoy writing and found an online writing course which we both enrolled on it.


I managed to complete 5 weeks of the course before a story revealed itself to me and I just had to write it. I say 'revealed' because, during the course, we were asked to write a character description and while I was happily describing my character, I visualised a whole plot around him.

I started to write; and the story got very involved. As it takes place over a couple of decades, I decided I needed to keep a timeline and set up a spreadsheet noting the characters characteristics, dates, ages, world events etc... so that I would not say that Phyllis was 10 years old in 1920 and later intimate that she was 20 years old in 1945. Reviewing my work, I soon realised that my timeline was going wrong, so I had to go back and make corrections.

Back on track, I was happily writing and keeping to the timeline, until I could not face ending two characters as I'd originally planned. They were too nice and had had a lot of trouble in their earlier lives. So I changed their ending and created another, less-likeable character to replace them.

The trouble now is, this new character is not coming along properly. I am writing him as a bit of a wide-boy, but that is taking me down the wrong path. He is off to prison if I'm not careful, which isn't where I want to take him.

Without giving anything away, I'm looking for ideas for a small business which might have gone under between 1994 and 1996. I have got something in mind. However, I'm sure there's a better idea out there... If you have any suggestions, please email me!

I've had to stop writing for a couple of weeks as I have had other distractions. I don't know yet when I will be able to return to my novel, but maybe leaving it for a while is a good thing. I can come back to it with fresh eyes. Well fresher...