The longest piece of writing I’ve ever done was a 12,000 word thesis for my MA. Since then, I’ve written loads of 1,000-3,000 word articles, stories, project plans, etc, and literally hundreds of shorter blog posts… But a novel? That’s a whole different proposition.

Guess that’s why there’s so much random writing software out there, designed to help people structure their work. I would imagine that few authors have the capacity, skill, etc to map out a 50,000-100,000 word storyline in their head, in all its glorious intricacy and wonder.

For me? I’ve found the initial planning stages fun. Huge fun. No software in use at the moment; just a big, A3 pad, on which I’ve sketched character descriptions, plot outlines, literally drawn the main character (I’m a terrible artist, but its a helpful part of the process…) and miscellaneous other notes.

Next up is to produce a more detailed chapter plan (probably in Word, or staying on the A3 pad), and then I’m borrowing from the screenwriting profession and storyboarding a few scenes. Have even accessorised accordingly. Hopefully this’ll get me to the point where I can actually write the story without feeling too self-conscious about individual aspects of it – this is the bit I find a little harder…

When I get to that point, to keep motivation up, I might try to do a weekly podcast – probably just me reading out chapters in audio-book on tape fashion. We’ll see…