Paul Murray

It took about five years, give or take. I spent some time going down rabbit holes of one kind and another before I finally started in earnest. I always write the first draft in longhand, then I type it up, then there are two or three major revisions before I’ll send it to the editor. Once it’s rolling the process is pretty steady – I treat it like a regular job, show up at my desk from Monday to Friday week after week till it’s done. I don’t take any serious time off from it – I need to stay in touch with the material, and anyway even when I’m not working on it I’ll be thinking about it. So holidays feel somewhat redundant. 

The last book I wrote was set in an investment bank, which entailed a lot of research. For this one I didn’t need to do any deep dives – it was more about getting the Midlands details right, the Millennial details right, the GAA stuff, and that could be researched by talking to people. The plot appears as I write – that is, once I start writing page 1, I’ll begin to get ideas for page 2, page 50, page 400. So there’s usually a fairly elaborate plan at a fairly early stage – though I try not to get too attached to it, because so much changes with the writing itself.

Read the full interview here.