Writer in Residence - Cornwall

Writing a piece of non fiction - an article, say - has a process for me which I follow every time. Firstly, I mindmap the topic and try to get all the angles. Then I work on the mindmap to synthesise the topics and get an initial shape to the article. At that point, I know what I already know and what - with thanks to Dick Cheney - I know I don't know. Now it is time for research and interviewing.

I'm still very old fashioned in my methods and so my research builds up as a gratifyingly solid pile of paper (even though much is found on the internet these days). When I have enough material and the deadline is looming, I map the research and interview material onto the mindmap structure so that I will remember to include it at the appropriate place.

Now all that remains is to write the piece. Despite the inclusion of research and interview material, it has to hang together as a unitary piece of work. That comes from writing not once but two or three times. After draft 1, the whole structure might change. What I'm trying to do here is to tell a story.

Finally, it reaches a point where I am happy with the structure and the flow of the piece and I'm happy that it is telling its own story. It is ready to submit.

Now, of course, all of this is being done to a deadline. Douglas Adams famously like deadlines - "I love the sound of them whooshing past". But if I want to get paid - and I do - then deadlines are important elements in this process.

Now scale all of that up from the 1500 words or so of an article to the 40 to 50 thousand words of a book. I'm currently at the writing stage but juicy bits of research keep winking at me and dare me not to include them. I'm writing in 'parts' which may or may not be in the final structure. Inside the parts are chapters and each has a mindmap and research. So far so good. The next stage will be the interesting one. When I try to make the whole book tell a story - and the structure begins to change.

And so to work ......