Hi Reader,

Times and events can change you. It could be a simple lesson, like how two trips with less cups leads to less broken crockery. Or it could be something deeper, like this isn't the way I normally write.

This week's simple lesson involves growing tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes.

These tomatoes were collected over two days. This is the third and fourth batch in the last month.

Normally, I'd be saying, 'pasta sauce', which is where these tomatoes will end up, once they're boiled down into passata. But seeing how many more tomatoes are ripening at the allotment, it looks like we might need another freezer.

Perhaps we should grow fewer tomato plants.

If nothing else, it may give me more time for writing.

While moving back into writing mode, preparing for the latest, and deepest, edit yet of my latest novel, The Mother He Never Knew, something stopped me in my tracks.

You've heard me talk about being a discovery writer. Well, this week I discovered something unexpected.

This novel has changed me.

The novel has changed through the rewrites. It's had about three titles, for a start. It began as a short story and grew into a complex cosy mystery. Then I couldn't resist losing the cosy aspects and changing it into a murder mystery.

This is when the change began in earnest.

I think I've said before that I like to leave a draft on the shelf for 4-6 weeks before returning to it. This enables me to distance myself so I can edit with fresh eyes and mind. The system worked fine for my Downland Murder Mystery series.

But this novel is different. Deliberately so.

It has two lead characters, each with similar issues, but very different ways of dealing with them.

James Riddel

James has a troubled childhood he escaped by becoming someone else.

He didn't believe he was worth much. His childhood and name (Jimmy Riddle to the bullies in school) held him back. Then he became a successful businessman in the Peak District and left the person he once was far behind.

Until his mother and father died in a car crash, bringing him back to his childhood home.

He thought he'd escaped the boy he was. Returning home made him realise he hadn't.

Sheryl Holmes

Sheryl also has a troubled past. She carries the guilt of her elder sister's death in Stratford-upon-Avon ten years ago. She dealt with this by moving away from the place and the people connected with the past. She returned to Sussex and became a cleaner in the Riddel House.

She believes that if people knew what she did, they wouldn't want to know her.

This showed me an interesting emotional core to these two characters -

James believed he wasn't worth much.

Sheryl believed she wasn't worth knowing.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I thought I knew these characters and how they behaved. In the past, I introduced characters into my novels and let them reveal themselves from the way they behaved and interacted with others. I discovered them as they evolved, much the same way that we learn more about people as we get to know them over time.

So, what changed?

I did.

I stopped looking at my characters as people who need to behave convincingly and asked myself what they believed about themselves.

What were they like on the inside? What drove them and coloured their outlook on life?

These were far more interesting questions. They prompted me to look deeper into their lives and beliefs.

For some time, my instincts have told me The Mother He Never Knew lacked something. Something crucial to the whole story.

As a novel it reads well. The plot, though intricate and twisting, has no holes or obvious weaknesses. The settings are ones I know well. The subsidiary characters are strong and believable. The climax is exciting and the reveal ties up all loose ends.

Had this been Kent Fisher, I might have published it already.

But The Mother He Never Knew means more to me than I realised.

Perhaps, for the first time, I'm not satisfied with simply telling a good story.

It's a new venture into a different world. In many ways, it evokes all the doubts and fears I had with No Accident, the first Downland Murder Mystery.

Then, I was wondering whether I could write a successful novel.

This time, I have no doubts about writing a novel. I want to know if I can write this novel properly.

Most of all, I want to write better.

And my instincts tell me I have some work to do before I get there.

I'll write about more than just this novel in future issues, but at the moment this is my main focus.

I've spent too long away from writing, dealing with other issues and pressures.

Now I'm back and raring to go.

Come with me as I discover what this novel is really about.