Book Four - Work in Progress
Three novels in as many years, totalling more than 350,000-words, is the kind of schedule that new (or in my case, new old) writers are expected to achieve if they want to make any kind of impact in an increasingly tough marketplace for fiction.
Unfortunately, 2008 threw up a glitch that happens to all of us sooner or later; a bout of ill-health that, on this occasion, called for an operation. It meant that delivery of Book Four, as agreed in my contract with Headline, was going to be delayed.
Now, fully recovered, I’m completing the research stage for this next work. The walls of my study are covered with biographies of the developing characters, timelines tracing various key events over a hundred-year period, notes about flying in everything from a Lilienthal glider to (inevitably) a Spitfire, and dozens of source books bristling with pages marked with post-it notes; in other words, the whole apparently chaotic paraphernalia of preparing for a new novel before distilling the essence of what has been learned and understood into a coherent and, hopefully, absorbing whole. In a few weeks time I’ll be in France, on my final spell of fun-time, locating First World War airfields used by the Royal Flying Corps. And then? No excuse for not writing, with a view to delivering the completed MS to Headline early next year. More details of the book, as yet untitled, have been shared only with my wife and my editor.
If you don’t entertain, then what’s the point?
But I can disclose that it will be a slight departure from what has gone before and the characters with whom I have lived, or more accurately served, for a number of years now, Kit Curtis and Ossie Wolf, may not, on this occasion at least, make an appearance. But even that is not definite. They say you should not take account of your readers when you write, only have regard for your inner voice and instinct. But in my case I am always conscious of a thankfully growing number of readers out there who have remained loyal to my work and helped this writer about flying to, rather appropriately, get off the ground, so I am determined to measure up to, or exceed, their expectations. This is, after all, an entertainment and if you don’t entertain, then what’s the point? That is why, through my blog, I am interested to receive (that useful cliche) feedback that may help to confirm a decision made, a route taken, an objective to be aimed for. Or, it must be admitted, disagreed with or ignored!
Anyway, I plan to up-date this section from time to time, tracking progress on what for the time being must be known as Book Four, without giving too much away. So, as they say, watch this space; that fearful void that confronts all writers about to embark on a new project.
Winston Churchill once said: ‘ Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the master and fling him out to the public.’
At the moment I’m pushing my new toy round the floor. That ‘last phase’ is such a long way off that it best not to brood. But quite as haunting, and a deadly truth, is the comment made by Donna Tartt: ‘ I can happily move a full stop around all day.’ We’ve all had times like that. I just hope that I don’t have too many over the next year or so.
