HOW does an idea become a novel? What are the minute-by-minute decisions and discoveries that lead to the realization of an artistic vision? In this companion book to the novel Water Lane: The Pilgrimage of Christopher Marlowe, the reader of the novel is invited to look over the shoulder of the writer at the process whereby a cluster of related images evolves into a realized work of art, and at the on-going exploration of the techniques that will allow us to process the bombardment of images that is life as we experience it in the 21st Century.