One of the pieces of advice I give to young authors is to plot out a book as clearly as you can — if you have a clear idea of where you want to go with a story, it makes the actual job of writing a whole lot easier. But it’s advice I didn’t follow myself when I was starting out — I often worked from the barest of notes. On this page you can find all the notes I used when writing the first draft of Ayuamarca. As you can see, they’re fairly skimpy! On top is a short message on a postcard, my way of summarising the book — this was what I used to show my friends when they asked what I was working on. Beneath that, on the left, is a brief list of what I roughly planned to include in each chapter. On the right is a list of some scenes I wanted to include — some made the final cut, some didn’t. And at the bottom is a list of character names, most of which I used, but some I didn’t.I wouldn’t recommend anyone to work in this way — it makes life much more complicated than it needs to be. But at the same time, it worked for me at the time, so I guess I can’t be TOO critical!!!