Today I’m thrilled to have author James Carol share a guest post about his day as a writer. I’m a huge fan of this author and I especially love his FBI profiler Jefferson Winter series, it’s one of my favourite crime series. The author has also just published a psychological thriller as J. S. Carol it’s called Kiss Me Kill Me, and another read I would highly recommend.
So without further ado here’s……………..
A Day In The Life Of James Carol
A typical day starts with getting the kids to school. One of the big advantages of working from home is that I get to do things like that. If there’s a school play or sports day, I can get there. My best memories of the past year are hearing my daughter sing like an angel at the Christmas concert, and watching my son running his heart out to win his race.
Once the kids are in school then it’s time to put on a CD and get to work. Writing in silence is a kind of torture for me. Music helps to block out all the other distractions so I can focus on the words. I listen to everything and anything. For example, right now I’ve got a Police compilation playing. That said, it could just as easily have been The Beatles or Lorde or even Taylor Swift.
If I’m working on a first draft, my aim is to get at least 1,500 words written. Do that for a week and I’m 7,500 words further on; do it for fourteen weeks and I’ve got a novel. Like Stephen King said, a novel gets written one word at a time. Think about it. Writing one word is achievable, however, if you’re sat there at the start of a novel and you’ve somehow got to find at least 100,000 words, that’s just too daunting. Where the hell do you start? So I write one word at a time, and it’s amazing how quickly those words turn into sentences, then paragraphs, and whole chapters.
I tend to clock off around one. By that point my brain is fried. Of course, writing is one of those occupations that you never totally switch off from. I’ll often find myself falling back into the novel at various points during the day, working through things in my head. Then there are those times when I end up doing the dreaded night shift. This usually happens when I’ve got a particularly gnarly plot problem to work out. For some reason, my brain decides that two o’clock in the morning is the best time to do this. And, no, I don’t get out of bed to write things down. If the idea is good enough then I’ll remember it. Lennon and McCartney did a similar thing in their early days, and it seemed to work out okay for them.
About the author
James Carol is the bestselling author of BROKEN DOLLS, the first in a series featuring former FBI profiler Jefferson Winter. The novel was released in the UK in January 2014 to rave reviews and reached number 1 on the Amazon fiction and thriller charts. In addition James is writing a series of eBooks set during Winter’s FBI days. PRESUMED GUILTY is the first of these. Under the pseudonym J.S. Carol, he has also written a number of standalones. KISS ME KILL ME is the latest.
James was born in Scotland and moved to England in the early-eighties. At various times he has worked as a guitarist, sound engineer, guitar tutor, journalist, and a horse riding instructor. When he’s not writing, James can usually be found in a pair of headphones writing and recording music. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and two children.
For more information go to: www.james-carol.com
To learn more about James Carol’s book click here….James Carol Books
The book review café 