Reblogged from Roberta Writes:

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

This is an intriguing question which I can only answer if I first break down what I think my own writing process is.

I have only published one young adult book, While the Bombs Fell, and I have recently finished a much longer work for a young adult audience, Through the Nethergate. I am currently working on a novella called A Ghost and his Gold which is set during the Second Anglo Boer War in South Africa and the first book in a trilogy about a world in the throes of climate crisis and the fallout from the fourth industrial revolution.

My writing process for WTBF was rather experimental as it was the first longer and more complicated story I attempted. It involved a lot of historical research which was enjoyable but time consuming. I learned a lot about developing a historical timeline of real events first and then fitting your story around it so that the timing all works correctly. I only realised that I need a historical timeline after I had finished the first draft of the book so I took me a lot of time and effort to go back and turn the entire story around and remodel it onto the historical timeline. I’ll never forget this lesson, that I can promise. I also learned a lot about dialogue and showing not telling as I have previously written non-fiction books which have a different writing style.

Continue reading at Roberta Writes