I’ve been tending to write blog posts once a month, but I didn’t last month because I was busy writing Martin and The Flood. It has felt a bit like I’ve been underwater; the title bobbed up from the depths of my subconsciousness, as did the whole story. I’ve finished my first draft now! I’m very pleased because I didn’t know where it was going when I started, I just said “I want to write 40 chapters in 6 weeks,” and I did! I’ve written every chapter individually as a Google Doc on my phone, so now I will put it all together in one Word file and leave it to edit in the new year.

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I’ve just listened to Philip Pullman’s The Rose Field, the final book in his The Book of Dust series, an adult trilogy which follows on Lyra’s story from his very famous His Dark Materials children’s trilogy. I write like Philip Pullman in that I feel my way forward through the story. He calls this “writing into the dark.” It’s how many authors write and I’m sure I’ve talked about the difference between plotting vs pantsing before. To use a travel metaphor, using a map to plan your route, or working out the route as you go along.

To some extent, I guess we’re all “writing into the dark” just by living our lives. No one knows what is going to happen next. The issues writers have is in making everything make sense. (And pulling everything together under the name of the book/series. Philip Pullman, why did you call it The Book of Dust??) I found when I was writing Martin and The Flood, I kept making up new things I knew I would have to go back and foreshadow earlier in the book. Now I know how the book ends, I can go back in the next draft and edit it to lead up to the ending. This is why a trilogy is so daunting to me: you can’t go back and foreshadow in a previously published book. You have to plot some things out (Which many writers excel at. Philip Pullman? Debatable).

I wrote in my previous blog post how I had a creative writing teacher who said the ending should be “surprising but inevitable.” I felt this way about the ending of The Rose Field. I think that I was most surprised by how inconclusive the ending felt, like there was so much left to happen – but I did like that. Lyra was only 20 after all. And I respect a fellow writer too much: if that is how they want the story to end, that is how it should end.

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My issue with the end of Martin and The Flood is that I really want it to end with an illustration. I love drawings, but I’m not allowing myself to imagine them because it is not my place. If a publisher buys a book from an author, then they will organise all the ways a book is presented, including illustrations. If an author has been published with that publisher multiple times with the same illustrator, then they can be pretty confident about illustrations, or if they are an author-illustrator themselves.

I am not. One of the most frequently asked questions I get when I tell people I am a children’s author is “Oh, do you draw the pictures too?” Sadly, no. I tried illustrating my work when I was at school and I realised by doing it that I don’t have it in me. I just don’t enjoy it enough to monetise it. I like drawing with no pressure. Professionally I’ll stick to writing, and I can only hope that, if this book was sold, I would be paired with a good illustrator. But I’d rather be in the dark for now.
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(Featured Image is the front cover of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman, illustrated by Chris Wormell, 2025)