My how you've grown
The last two projects I’ve worked on – DEVIL IN THE DETAIL and WHISKY IN THE JAR – both started out as much shorter pieces.
DEVIL was a novella I wrote in 2010 set to bridge to gap between GHOST and the then second novel, BEAST IN THE SHADOW (now subsumed into DYED IN THE WOOL). I made the decision to expand it into a full novel, going from the 21,000 words to the eventual published 103,000, but with many more characters, subplots and – yes – detail.
I submitted WHISKY as a 3,000 word short story for the Bloody Scotland competition – I didn’t win and can see why. I had crunched a full case into their limit and it was a bit compressed. I’ve just finished the second draft as a novella and it’s sitting at 23,000 words. I expect the dodgy start to be rewritten and push that closer to 30,000.
But there you go, I’m ploughing on and I expect it to come out sometime in November – let me just say the 19th as that’s when I have a few other things planned.
I’m writing it at the same time as plotting out DYED IN THE WOOL, and I think I should be able to finish ALL IN A NAME in roughly the same exercise. It’s another novella but it might get deprioritised to early next year.
Anyway, DEVIL is out, WHISKY isn’t far off, GHOST is selling well and things are good.
— Ed
Sarah Young
Hi Ed, it’s great to know things are going well for you. I know you’re proud of what you’re achieving with your writing. You’re the first new author who’s books i have/am reading as all others (Rankin, Cleeves etc) have been established authors when i started reading their work.
It’s going to be nice to follow your development and improvement with your books over the forthcoming years. You’re doing a great job so far, i would love to write something myself but working full time as a nurse and having the obvious task of work/family life balance my free time is always taken up. Maybe one day when my daughter leaves school (next year) and becomes more independent i might be able to some writing. She is focussing on becoming a criminal psychologist and my husband and myself are going to do our best in helping her achieve this.
Anyway, just started to read Devil in the Detail and am expecting good things after enjoying Ghost in the Machine so much.
Keep up the great work.
edjamesauthor
Wow thanks! Really appreciate the kind words.
The advantages I have are 1. no kids and no plans for kids, 2. an hour each way commute and 3. a weird ability to write on a packed commuter train. It needs time and headspace to write – I hope you do eventually get that, more than happy to exchange emails to get you cracking!
Hope you enjoy DEVIL!
— Ed