I could have opted to sit in front of the computer, open up Word and start to type. A linear manuscript with a beginning, middle and end. Except, I chose not to do this.

I wrote out my outline and ideas swooshed into my head, but not for start, but further into the story. I wanted to write about certain encounters, decisive moments in the character’s life. Hopping about a Word document isn’t easy – the constant scrolling, losing track of where to put paragraphs.

I opened a blog. It’s private, so don’t go looking for it, but it’s there and that is where my book is shaped. I write posts as if they are mini-chapters or scenes. A hundred words here, a few thousand there. Using a blog to write allows me to extract the words from the recesses of my mind let them take shape. I add images for visual clues and pointers, tags to help link things which are related in the storyline or chronology of events. Every now and again, I scoop up a few posts, spliced them together and turn them into a flow of text – the beginnings of a traditional manuscript.

Does anyone else work in this way? Curious.