Insomnia isn't always a bad thing...

This morning I woke up at three am. I had a plane to catch to Rome, so maybe that was it. But I wasn’t due to get up until 5:45. I tried to sleep for an hour or so, and then it happened, as it sometimes does. My brain started typing.  A line. Not just any line. A killer line.

When trained killers enter a dark, smoke-filled room hunting their quarry, they don’t usually look up to the ceiling.

Damnit. The next line typed itself without even asking permission.

Which was exactly where Blue Fan was,

Screw it. I got up, pulled on some clothes and headed to the kitchen, switched on the kettle, made tea, and fired up the laptop.

…hands and feet wedged hard against the edges of a recess, as if crucified on an X-shaped cross. Like a sacrifice. Which is exactly what she’d have been if they’d tilted their necks upwards. But they didn’t.

I stared at the words, sipped my tea. Okay, good tension. But what about her? This is the first time the readers of 66 Metres and 37 Hours meet Blue Fan, Nadia’s new nemesis. So, some character. Out-and-out baddie? No. Something more subtle, ambiguous.

Muscles taut, not breathing, she counted the rifle-sight laser beams criss-crossing the empty chamber. Three. Disappointing. She was worth more.

I carried on writing and editing. I’d already written the start of the third Nadia book two weeks earlier. But unless something better comes along, I know this will replace it.

As I typed the last line of the scene and hit save, the alarm went off.  Time to go to work, to catch the plane to Rome, even though part of my mind was still in Hong Kong with Blue Fan. What would be her next move?