When you’re writing a book, momentum is very important. Not in the sense of mass or velocity, but the impetus you gain once you get the story going and which keeps pushing you on to the end. That fact became very apparent to me over the last few months, when I lost momentum on one of the books I was writing. I’d begun well enough, I thought, with a strong synopsis and a raft of characters I felt were interesting and who would come alive as they were fleshed out on the page. I started well, with the words flowing naturally and at a decent enough pace, but then things started going rather less well.

From the beginning of March to the first week in May, I was busy every weekend, either doing signings around the UK, America and France, or else I had busy things planned, such as weddings in Denmark to attend or having drinking buddies down from Scotland. Don’t get me wrong, all these things were great fun and I had a ball at all of them, but they left me physically and mentally drained to the point where I was so utterly exhausted during the week that I could barely keep my eyes open during the day was sucked dry of any last reserves of creative juice. And the book suffered as a result. My word count dropped through the floor and I just couldn’t force the story onwards. It’s like a heavy object…once you get it moving, it acquires its own (you guessed it) momentum, and carries itself forward on its own to a degree. But once you stop it, oh man…getting it moving again is a real bitch of a job.

Added to all this, the fickle gods of all things electrical were conspiring against me as well, sending a diabolical cup of tea to destroy my keyboard, a power surge to blow out my power cable and obsolescence to fry my battery. All of which left me shaking my fist and cursing inanimate objects in the manner of Basil Fawlty and his mini. It felt like someone, somewhere didn’t want this book written. I was getting to the point where I was beginning to wonder if I could even get it finished, which is a horrible place to be, a place where you doubt your own abilities and question how you could have arrived there. I eventually realised I’d embarked upon a job that needed a lot of world-building and planning up front and which needed a lot more thought put in than I’d managed before a single keystroke was delivered.

With that realisation, I went back to first principles and built the world up in my head. I thought I knew it beforehand, after all…I’ve done a few novels in my time, I knew my way around this place didn’t I? Well, no as it turned out. It’s a point I’ve now seared onto my frontal lobes, that no matter how thoroughly I think I know a setting, it never hurts to go back and make sure I know it like the back of my hand. Better even. Drawing a map helped, as that’s always a good way for me to stimulate the creative juices, as did talking to Dan Abnett – a man for whom I’ve immense respect – who was kind enough to give me the benefit of his experience to kick-start the process again. In addition, Nik Abnett offered to read the first half of the book, which will be no end of useful. The very idea of Nik reading the book lit a fire under my arse to get back to work, so it’ll be in no small measure thanks to them that this book reaches the finish line. I’ve also been re-reading Dan’s Titanicus, which has been immensely helpful in getting things moving. We’d already talked about the cool links between the stories we were telling and seeing what Dan had done was a great motivator to get back in front of the keyboard. Trust me, I think you’re gonna like it.

So with my rediscovered mojo, a map and a self-administered slap to the face, I got back to work and, lo and behold, the words came, flowing as though they’d never been away. Armed with a new keyboard, power cable and battery, I’ve rediscovered the joy of a story unfolding the way I expected (and in ways I didn’t). And I’m getting that familiar excitement as things start falling into place and I get those little flashes of inspiration that tickle my hindbrain with those, ‘Ooooo, that’d be cool!’ moments. And the more I write, the more I’m thinking that this could very well be the best book I’ve done in terms of invention, surprises, revelations and characters. Time will tell, but I’m already getting a good feeling about it.

So, if there’s a lesson to be learned out of all this, it’s that you need to keep momentum on any writing project, but also that you time to recharge the batteries along the way. We need the pressure of work, but we also need time to de-stress, unwind and sometimes just do nothing… Simple advice that’s easy to say and easy to nod your head sagely upon hearing, but often hard to put into practice. I’ve read blogs, interviews and the like where authors talk about how difficult it is to get a novel done in a year and I laugh. I don’t think I could ever take that long on a book; it’d lose the inspiration that drove me and would, I think, come to feel like a chore, a millstone around my neck. No, as much as the short deadlines of Black Library books can sometimes feel insanely compressed, I’d much rather be writing while there’s a fire in my belly for the story and characters, getting them out onto the page while they’re fresh and vital. Having said that, you’d always like a few extra weeks for that absolutely, last-minute, final polish, but part of the writing process is knowing when to let go and send your pride and joy out into the world.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I’ll finish by saying that I’m going to be at Games Day Canada this weekend. If you’re in the vicinity of the Queen Elizabeth Building Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ontario, on Saturday June 21st between 9am and 4pm, then hopefully I’ll see you there. I'm going to be signing books and just generally chatting with anyone who drops by. I’m also told there’ll be copies of the new Uriel Ventris novel, The Killing Ground, available to buy, as well as some of the limited edition chapbooks with the Dark King and the Lightning Tower in it.

Talk to you soon.

Graham