Week 3 and the Curious Incident of the Notebook at the Bus Stop

OK, so it's time to let you know what kind of book I am writing.

It's a crime novel with all the elements you would expect (but to paraphrase the great Eric Morecambe, not necessarily in the order you would expect them). It's set in a coastal town in the north of England and the main characters are a policeman and a journalist. Not exactly a marriage made in heaven, but neither was Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne's, but that seems to work.

Basically, it's a modern detective story with more twists than Chubby Checker's back catalogue (note to self: might be an idea to update pop culture references).

I had given myself two weeks to write the next chapter - and this has turned out to be a good idea. It is already becoming apparent that I am unable to write from A to B. Instead of an ordered A-Z narrative, my desk looks like an explosion at a alphabet spaghetti factory.

I blame the notebook. Following Kate Mosse's tip no.2 (see last week's blog), I have carried a note book all week. On Tuesday, I suddenly had an idea for something that would happen in the last quarter of the book. Now normally, I would have jotted the idea down on anything that came to hand (the morning's paper, the back of my hand, the woman in front of me...); but as I had the notebook with me, I used that.

I'm not sure what happened next, but the next thing I knew I had got on the bus, travelled for half an hour, passed my stop and ended up in an area of the city that is so run down, the muggers go around in pairs.

I had written two whole scenes - around 1000 words of something that is due to happen a good dozen chapters from where I am now.

What I need now is some software for my novel that helps me bring these various strands together. And what do you know? I found it. I'll tell you about my recommendation for writing software next week when I'll also be reporting back on Kate's tip 3: Practice.

I will start by practicing getting off the bus in the right place.