It was hard work writing Worldshaker! The first ideas for the world arrived 15 years ago, and the basics of the story soon after. But I couldn't sit down to writing it for a very long time--perhaps I baulked because I knew it had to be turned into the best thing I'd ever done, perhaps I doubted I'd ever be able to sell it.

When I finally got going, it was like the floodgates bursting--I just wrote and wrote. But it still didn't work out perfectly first time--and I was determined it had to be perfect. There were interruptions when other books needed working on, there were critiques from readers that made me think how I could do it better. I re-thought and re-wrote the novel from beginning to end twice, plus another major revision after that.

It could have been agony, except that the revisions made sense. I could feel the novel improving as I re-wrote it--I could never have done it otherwise. It must have taken five years from the time I wrote the first 20,000 words to the time when I had it all finally finally finished. For me, it was worth it--I hope readers feel the same way.

I've put the story of the novel on 3 separate web pages:

- getting the ideas that went into the novel

- writing the first draft

- working through all the re-writes that came after .

Or here's a NEXT button to follow the story through chronologically.