Wrote 10 more pages of the new book yesterday. This one features a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes, which are at the same time both frutrating and intriguing to write. Frustrating because the plot moves forward a bit slower than I like and I don't have a sense of advancing at any great speed. Intriguing because you can learn so much just by having characters chatting to each other. I never know much about my characters when I start writing. They grow out of the story-telling process, and I find out things about them as I proceed, by having them chat to each other and behave however they please. As long-term fans know, I prefer not to go overboard describing my characters, as I find, when I'm reading a book, that the specifics of their looks don't really stick in my mind. Obviously you need a few pointers in most cases (e.g. with Mr Crepsley -- orange hair, a scar, red clothes), but I find that their speech patterns and mood swings make far more of an impact. There's no point spending half a page describing in great detail what a character looks like, only to find that he or she has nothing interesting to say once they open their mouth and start speaking!!!

I meant to do another full day of writing today, but things kept getting in the way -- emails that had to be answered, meetings that had to be kept. I got a little bit of editing of yesterday's pages done, but ultimately I had to write the day off. A pity, especially as I have other things that I have to do for the rest of this week, meaning this was my last opportunity to do some new writing until I return from Edinburgh and London. Oh well, I've made a good start, I'm happy with the characters, and the pace picks up in the second half, so I've plenty to look forward to when I come back!!!!

Regarding the shift to WordPress, the response so far has been overwhelmingly in favour of it. I'll still be duplicating my blog on MySpace, as I've been doing for a long time now, but I think I'm going to stop my Blogdrive blog in a few days and switch over to Wordpress. I'll still keep the Blogdrive pages active, at least in the near future, so that fans can still check out old blogs. In the meantime, you might want to bookmark the new page -- you can also use the links on it to be updated by email every day that I post a new blog. There's an RSS feature on it too, for those who know what that means!!! If you have any advice or wishes where the new, Wordpress blog is concerned, do please let me know. This is the link for it: http://therealdarrenshan.wordpress.com