Learning as I went…

By July, the novelty of simply starting a book gave way to the tougher question: how exactly do you write one?

I began experimenting with new writing software and templates. None of it gave me a magic formula, but it kept me moving. I also started to wrestle with the shape of the story itself—where it might bend, and where it refused.

My background is in financial services, and while the main character isn’t based on any one person, he grew out of a familiar type—a compound figure built from colleagues, clients, and more than a few pub stories. The scams that creep into the novel come from the same place: a mixture of urban legends, whispered anecdotes, and half‑remembered cautionary tales.

I had a clear picture of the characters’ backgrounds—their voices, their flaws, their baggage. What I didn’t have was a map. I wrote the opening chapters without much of a plan, discovering the plot as I went. It was exciting, unnerving, and occasionally terrifying—like sprinting down a dark alley and hoping it didn’t end in a brick wall.

All the while, I kept asking the bigger question: what is this book actually about? A caper? A thriller? A romance in disguise? For now the only answer was to keep writing and let the book tell me what it wanted to be.

— Mark

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