MY WRITING DAY
DANN MCDORMAN
The post-modern mystery author tells Lynne Hackles about following the fun, and trying to remember the great ideas he gets when he goes running
©Beowulf Sheehan
Dann McDorman is an Emmy-nominated TV news producer. He’s also worked as a newspaper reporter, book reviewer, and cabinet maker, and still has a full-time job.
‘I have to work around that,’ he says, ‘by writing in the early morning during the week and then stealing whatever time I can at weekends. My moderate to despairing insomnia means I’ll text or email notes to myself into the middle of the night, some of which still make sense after dawn. Perhaps the most felicitous time to write is when I’m not writing at all. I try to run a few times each week, and often the best, most exciting ideas will come when I’m halfway through the jog. The challenge, then, is to keep these amazingly brilliant thoughts in my head until I get home.