Things have been going ridiculously well with the writing of this new book! I am now in the process of developing the main characters. I began with Detective Clayton, the lead investigator for the police. In the manuscript there are several references already to his wife, who is a successful lawyer and makes a lot more money than he does. I wanted to write a scene in which she becomes a real character and the nature of their relationship is illustrated. It started well, but then went down a path that I was not expecting. I trusted my instincts and just allowed the dialogue to lead me to a natural conclusion; and I am so glad that I did. The strange thing is that it was afterwards, when I was washing the pots, that the truth of what I had just written hit me; it was almost an epiphany. In fact, in creative terms, it probably was one.

Whilst enjoying the warmer climes of Gran Canaria last month, I had several conversations with my own wife, mostly over a bottle of wine and dinner. We talked about the past, the present, and the future, and found that in all the important areas of life we are in agreement. These conversations clearly influenced what I then wrote in the scene with the Claytons. Okay, that is hardly a revelation; most writers are influenced by their own experiences. The really interesting part is that I subconsciously wrote into the dialogue a fact that will allow me to include Detective Clayton, the logical man of reason, into the supernatural aspects of the story. I knew that this bridge between Clayton and Jessica, the protagonist, was missing, but I had not spent any time thinking about a resolution; although it now seems that I had been doing that very thing, just unconsciously. Not only does this help me join the two sides of the story, the supernatural and the police investigation, it also suggests an interesting conclusion for Detective Clayton at the end of the book.

I am now working on another detective, a member of Clayton’s team, who has only one appearance in the book at the moment. I was wondering whether to delete this character, but I never made the final decision while I was working on other areas to the story; now I am glad that I left him in. I have an idea that will allow for a dramatic development in the plot and also confuse matters further for the reader (hopefully). It will also give me the opportunity to explore how we often base our attitudes towards other people on presumptions and not on actually getting to know them.