Writing Process Blog Hop Tour:

I've been invited to join the Writing Process Blog Hop tour by Kyra Halland, I would like to thank her for this opportunity to answer questions about my writing.

Q1) What am I working on?

I have numerous works at various stages of production at the moment. I have just published the second in my Vampire Hunter Trilogy, The Shadowing Coven, and I am writing the first draft of the next book in my Ramton Gallow Mystery series, The Amazing Pickwick Circus. There are a couple of projects still at the plotting stage, and once The Amazing Pickwick Circus is complete I will choose one of them to start writing the first draft. And so the cycle continues.

Q2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure how to answer that question; I think I’ll leave it to my readers. I just write the books that I would like to read, and hope that others feel the same.

Q3) Why do I write what I do?

I’ve been asked this question numerous times, and I still don’t have a decisive answer. I guess I write what I do because it’s the kind of stories that are inside me, bursting to get out.

Q4) How does my writing process work?

My writing process usually starts with the spark of an idea, which can come from anywhere, that I jot down and let germinate. When I am ready to develop the idea into a book, I write out the plot and do any necessary research. As this can take weeks, sometimes months or more, I start writing the first draft of a book that has already been plotted and researched. The story is divided into chapters, and given a target word count for each chapter, which is an easier and less daunting task to concentrate on than the book as a whole. It also means that when I go over the target word count on some chapters I can bank them for when a chapter falls a little short. Once the first draft is done I leave it to rest for about six weeks before I start on the second draft, this means that when I return to it I do so with a fresher eye and notice those things in the story that need to be changed. Once I feel it is ready to be published I format it to publication specs and go through it again for any mistakes. I then print it out in book form to see how it looks, go through it again just to make sure everything is fine, and then... it gets cast out to the whole world. I almost never return to it once it has been published. The irony of writing books that I as a reader would love to read is that because I have written them I can’t re-read them without a critical eye, and so do not enjoy my work.

That's my writing process in a nutshell, I hope you enjoyed finding out a bit more about how I take those crazy thoughts out of my head and put them down on paper.

Here are a couple of others who have been involved with the Writing Process Blog Hop Tour:

John James Loftus

Heather Heffner

Be sure to check them out.

Vampires VS. Witches? - The Shadowing Coven

When I wrote Ritual of Blood I always thought that the characters were far too big for just one book, so after the publication of my first novel I went to work on the next one in the series, The Shadowing Coven. I got about two thirds of the way through before things outside the world of writing took over.  Ill health caused me to stop writing for a number of years, and it wasn't until I began working in The Witch of Primrose Hill that I managed to get back into the swing of things.  Needless to say, The Shadowing Coven was placed on the back burner while I built up my confidence to write again.

Fast forward nearly ten years since I began, and now finally The Shadowing Coven is finished, and the adventures of Victor Drake and the others have continued.  There shall be one more Vampire Hunter book to round off the trilogy and tie up all plot strings nice and neatly.

Set eighteen months after the events in Ritual of Blood, we find Victor Drake now married to Jessica, and trying to live a quiet life working at the British Museum, until news from his brother leads them away from London to Cornwall, where things drag Victor back into hunting not only vampires but also The Shadowing Coven, a sisterhood of witches hellbent on bringing the sister of Dran Val Karlic, named Ishanna, back into this world.

The publication date for The Shadowing Coven in paperback and Kindle formats is 31st March, with it being available in ePub eBook format about three months later.

Now work will have to begin in the final book, and hopefully this one won't also take nearly a decade to write.