For some reason Book 4 isn't playing ball. By now there should be lines and stuff popping unbidden to mind, as the back of my head gets on with it's job and starts making things up. Lazy bloody subconscious. What's the point of having a bit of your brain that makes shite up on its own if you can't bend it to your indomitable will?
BEND, damn it!
I know what the story is roughly going to be about: a very nasty blast from DI Insch's past. I know when the thing's going to be set: over the Halloween / Bonfire Night period. And I think there might be some stuff set in Tarves. But definitely in Oldmeldrum as Insch drinks in the Redgarth Inn there. He's the huge fat bastard at the bar, hoovering up all the crisps. I've even got a stack of supporting characters for the book... But what I don't have is the first clue where I'm going to start.
None of the other books have been like this. They've all started to fall into place before I get anywhere near writing the first line. Book 4 is a slippery little sod though. It's not playing.
To be fair -- I've not exactly been bending my brain to the task. I've been sodding about with the edit of BROKEN SKIN and the last programming bitties for the revamped website (after which I'm going to have a huge pile of things to write if I'm going to fill in all the new pages, not to mention all the photos I'll have to take). Tomorrow I've got to get filling, sanding and varnishing all the new woodwork in the spare room; that's a fairly mindless task, so maybe I'll be able to subjugate the old subconscious then.
Of course, I'm back at INoGITCH on Monday -- that may loosen the old brain a bit, or it may just constipate the hell out of it. Difficult to tell from this distance.