Black Hours Diary Entry No. 4: The Clarity of Fog

Well, it’s week four since I started writing The Black Hours proper, and I’m almost 40,000 words into the book (a third of the way there, folks). Everything is going well, and that’s unnerving ‘cos I’m expecting that inevitable “brick-wall” around one of these corners (call me a pessimist, it’s happened too many times for me to believe otherwise – especially on the first draft).

Currently, the book is writing itself, adding its own characters, making it easy for me. I’d say the hardest part is making it feel authentic enough. As usual I’m researching as I go, and there’s always little nuggets of authenticity to dig up, forcing me to back-peddle a few pages to add a paragraph of description here and there. But that’s fine, I can go back, I can go forwards, or sideways. Whatever helps to get those words on the page, right?
At the moment my London is like a Monet painting – an impression more than stark images. I can feel it, almost taste it, and I can definitely hear it, but my London needs to be in “1080p” (a TV techie term, my apologies) before I get the book finished. I don’t want it to be abstract. I want the reader to feel the grime of the metropolis, tasting the bad air and the filthy wintry fogs.

The second draft should get under the fuzziness of that hulking city and bring it into clarity as well as its people. With more detail comes added focus, and I can luxuriate in that detail adding colour and textures and the vibrancy that the greatest city in the 19th century world could offer.
That’s the hope anyway.
And besides, there’s only so many ways you can describe a "peasouper"…