When I’m writing, I hope to convey every nuance of humanity, every vision of nature, and every observation of the people I’ve seen in the supermarket, pub, or during a walk. But that’s a big ask and quite rightly paralysing, especially when writing the first draft of a new novel.

Instead, I need to focus on the small stuff, the single grey hair on the protagonist’s head, the dust motes hovering in the shaft of sunlight, the chipped nail polish on a woman’s fingers. Starting small gives me the corner piece of a jigsaw puzzle from which to build the bigger picture that eventually becomes a novel.

Of course, not all of the small stuff will remain in the novel once the full picture emerges – but I don’t know that when I start, it’s only further down the line that I can work out what to keep and what to save for another time. But starting small is less daunting and gets me to focus in on the minutiae to make the characters more rounded, and hopefully build a visual feast for the reader.

This blog post is like the topic – small!

Happy Word Flow One & All