©Rachel Pendlebury
Red Side Story is my current book, published this month. It is the sequel to Shades of Grey, a book I wrote ten years ago, a dystopian thriller set in a world where the social hierarchy is governed by the colours you can see. Grey was high concept then and it’s high concept now, but after a slow sales start, has gained a forceful and committed following who became ever more voluminous in their demand for a sequel. So I picked up the story about a week after the first book ended, and just carried on. More reveals, more explanations, more jeopardy. I hope it works...
I like to try and hunker down in the winter and thrash the book out whilst it’s cold outside – I call it Scribernating – but it rarely works out that way. I tend to write whenever I need to, which is pretty much always as my ‘I’m making it all up as I go along’ writing style means I am often experimenting ‘on the fly’ and don’t know if the chapter I’d just written is going to be included or scrapped.
