Have you heard the one about the three orcs who walk into a tavern?

No, neither have I. I wonder how it goes?
It does though capture the way I write, setting up a scenario and then letting my characters occupy it. When ‘Guardians’ was released earlier this month, one of my film world colleagues asked if I ever get writer’s block. I had to admit it isn’t really a problem, as I’m constantly juggling a series of Gwin adventures, known as the ‘Players’ series. I’m holding on to ‘Runners’ her first adventure, in the trenches of the First World War, for a bit, although it does impact on all her other adventures. As things stand, Gwin and her friends are just meeting their audience as ‘Guardians’ finds its feet, but in the series her story has already evolved. She meets new friends, unexpectedly rediscovers old friends, and makes deadly enemies in ‘Pilgrims’, which is currently with the Austin Macauley Publishers production team. In ‘Pilgrims’ it is Gwin herself, not her invented character, who has to fight for survival and somehow forge a warband from a handful of lost outcasts. And as the story unfolds Gwin begins to understand who – or what – is really pulling the strings. The third of Gwin’s adventures in the medieval fantasy world of Empire is ‘Outlaws’, which is getting its final pre-submission edit. A big book, ‘Outlaws’ leads inevitably towards a truly epic battle.
I believe that one way to avoid writer’s block is to write what you can write, rather worrying about what you can’t. At any one time I can be setting down completely new material, honing existing material, or checking proofs for publication, so there is always something I can do. Also, I work in a non-linear way, writing sections and then filling in the gaps in between. This comes from being involved with film making, where you’ll watch a rough cut of the filming to date with a [CONTENT AWAITED] board where bits haven’t yet been shot. I just stick a [CONTENT AWAITED] board in my manuscript, then come back later to fill the gap. No panic, it’s just a process. As I said at the top, I enjoy setting up a scenario, then letting my characters get on and inhabit it – and yes, the ensemble cast in the later books does include three orcs – two shaman-sword scholars and a magnificently battle-scarred renegade – so it’ll probably be a wild time in the tavern!
Sitting back and letting the cast get on with it really started with ‘Guardians’, when I was writing a short bridging piece between two sections I had already completed. Entirely unprompted Thaddeus went and did something radical, something completely unexpected – so unexpected that I ended up having to rewrite the whole section I was bridging to. Re-reading I realised it defined the story. It was really clever, and I wish I had thought of it. I didn’t though, it was him. This sort of thing happens in LARP live action roleplay, when your character suddenly starts volunteering information or taking positions on topics without any premeditation or planning on your part. Suddenly you feel you really are sharing your body with another character with a life (and opinions) of their own – and that, of course, is precisely what I was trying to get across in ‘Guardians’…

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