From nothing...

Well, not strictly nothing - I had a small idea, which seemed a bit odd and nothing too grand at that. I didn't realise at the time that this was probably the bigest idea in writing I would ever have! Years later, I'm still wrestling with 'the big picture'. I hate that phrase, as most people are not so narrow-minded that they don't take in a lot of other things before deciding what they need to do, or where to go. But it probably applies in this case: one book may not be enough.
Research, for example, took a couple of years, as I needed to be sure of what I was talking about. Most of it became redundant. Fiction does that, sometimes: you are creating a story, and you need to entertain the reader. Facts, though interesting, will increase the boredom factor and no amount of jigging them about will stop them killing you off. But I needed to know facts and then arrange them in my head, so I knew where I was going most of the way. Fact versus fiction became a constant struggle, which also took time.
One of the things that has caused me much consternation is that I seemed to be writing in smaller pieces. Not seemed - I did! Not happy with having to 'join up the dots' I wrote more back-story and also came up with flashbacks. I now have a list of events and writing them up before filling in the blanks feels like the way I have to go with this one. When I wrote Sword, I wrote until I filled a hole or fell asleep. Being more naturally a fantasy writer, all I needed was time. Here, I needed a whole lot more: planning, structure, a list of people in the story, factual information, history. Writing in plain english while searching for a style has caused me to doubt whether I could ever make it in modern literature.
But here I am, coming up with more ideas and still working on it.
It was just a small thought, but it has grown rather huge - at least in my head, anyway. I'm not unhappy, more a bit bothered that it has taken such a long time. The end of the year will see the ending of the first book. I can see that. Then my readers shall see it: the Intrepid Four!
Catch you later... :-)