In the Autumn of 2021, I sat down in front of my laptop and started to type.
In front of me were several A3 sheets of paper covered with spidery handwriting – a very personal form of short hand – not for privacy’s sake, but because in recording ideas, my imagination often raced faster than my hand’s ability to record my thoughts.
Broad arrows swept across the paper, pencil marks taking my eye from one group of words to another, some circled repeatedly to draw my attention to the connected themes, others with smaller descriptors designating a specific role or detail for a character.
Questions marks littered the page, smaller sub plots were squeezed next to earlier thoughts, fighting for recognition amongst the main storyline. Across the top were roughly drawn columns with chapter numbers, some narrow, others wider to emphasise greater detail.
To an outsider it must have looked like the ramblings of a mad man. The planning, the thought process, the ideas generation had taken months. And now I had the outline of a manuscript.
A spy thriller.
My debut novel.
Set in a city I had lived in nine years earlier.
All I needed to do was write the story…
Details of the publication date and how to pre order the book will be announced in the coming days and weeks…
Ade Clewlow MBE 