I do not prepare in any way whatsoever but (foolishly) I always have an idea in my head. “This is what the story is going to be, this is where it is going, this is where it will end” Only thrice have I erred from this (my) method. Once it was for a writing exercise. “Choose a word and keep writing no matter where it went. Lol- I could not think of a word and so I wrote. “What? What am I supposed to do now? This is Fucking awful, shit, what the fuck do I do now? lol and so it continued, and this “exercise” sold thousands of copies back in the nineties. Lol- paid for much.
A few years later I fell in love and showed my new girlfriend the wonders of Scotland. A strange novel fell from my lips to my fingertips and sold though I was told it would not. I continued writing and my books always sold, fewer copies than those I mentioned but they sold. and I could go on, and on, and on but the moral of my story is that for me, the unexpected, the blank page, unobserved, has served me best over the years.
I would always recommend that you come to the blank page with nothing. Just a question. Why? Where? When? How? Who? You can add all the details as you are writing.
