#Domevember #ReadySteadyBook! Featuring Adrian Magson

And now, it is the turn of Inspector Rocco creator, Adrian Magson, to share his thoughts on the 5 things which in his opinion, make a great book!

Adrian Magson’s Top 5  ingredients for writing a book:

Ann, my No 1.  She’s my first reader, the initial slayer of typos and timeline errors. She’s a fierce supporter in all things, and if authors had groupies, she’d be mine. She doesn’t read crime or spy thrillers but loves my books. Yes, it’s unadulterated bias, but what’s it to ya?

Silence. Odd, I know, but I find music a distraction, so silence is preferable (although it’s good to hear some movement just to let me know there hasn’t been a Martian invasion while I‘ve been busy rummaging around inside my own head).

Oddly, I do find film some soundtracks generate something, a buzz, but not while I’m writing. Maybe it’s an association of ideas or a feeling of energy.

I also have to face a wall rather than a window, otherwise I get too many ‘goldfish moments’ and start drifting away into the ether.

Encouragement. The rocket fuel boost of having a reader (actually, more than one), who’s asked, ‘When’s the next one out… ?’  It’s a massive lift having readers who ‘get’ your writing, and it’s never underestimated nor taken for granted.

Ditto the encouragement from my agent, David Headley and my publishers, Dome Press, who also keep asking, ‘When…?’ and say such nice things about my work it makes me blush.

Enjoying what I do. Without enjoyment I wouldn’t be able to start. I sit down each day with a sense of eagerness – even if I find at the end of one of those not-so-good days when it’s turned out to be so much poop. (And it happens, believe me, which is why whoever invented the delete button should be given a plinth in Trafalgar Square). And I always look on tomorrow as another day… of writing and making stuff up for a living, so how can I complain?  

Luck. The sheer bare-faced good fortune of being; of finding ideas, of working on them, of getting so much support and of being able to do what I always wanted to do ever since I was in shorts – and I don’t mean last summer. (Way further back than that, when dinosaurs roamed and the only in’t’net was something a fishing-mad neighbour used to shout down by the river).

Still super intigued about the bird house you are building Adrian-will we ever see it finsihed? Love the teal paint that your computer faces, I am the same, put me by a window and all I do is daydream….

Thanks so much for sharing your creative ideas, you can find Adrian on Twitter @AdrianMagson1 or on his blog  here!

His books, revised and recovered,are available from Dome Press here.