Tag: fiction

The Unconventional-Conventional Process

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John Lewell graduated from NTU’s BA Creative Writing in 2023, with First Class Honours, and is now set to graduate from the MA Creative Writing with Distinction this winter. This blog post is adapted from part of his final assignment for the MA, in which he reflected on his development as a writer.

Searching my heart, mind, and soul, I realise that writing is a journey of discovery— guiding me down paths hidden from the five senses, revealed only through the process, often occurring when I am in a state beyond conscious awareness. Most believe one needs to think to write, but that hinders the flow for me. I drift on a shimmering radio wave, surfing through the universe along streets where memories, emotions, and people mingle, waiting to be picked up, spun around, and woven into a scene. Do I know who this will be, or consider where they will arrive, or when? Nope. As Chris Martin from Coldplay said, ‘Wherever songs come from,’ while looking at the sky and pretending to be all intelligent and artisanal. Good writing, great writing, sensational writing appears. Thinking happens long before the act: in childhood, when you’re about to get your face kicked in; or as a teenager, when you’re scared to tell your friends that you lied about losing your virginity; or when you become a man and realise you’re still that little boy, petrified, waiting for a beating. Mum, Dad, siblings, friends, enemies, hate, love, lust, depression, water, beer, drugs, women, and again love—all spin down the funnel leading here. I don’t believe all can reach this place, or their equivalents of it. 

It helps to know where a comma goes and all that stuff, but words are the destination of this ride. In university, I had to learn all that, and fast, and others inadvertently made me feel small and inadequate with their academic and literary skills. But I noticed something that gave me faith: I loved writing, lusted after it. And not all had that look in their eyes. This is a hunger born of years of intellectual scarcity, a famine of the cerebral. So, I gorged: Lawrence, Bukowski, King, Liu Cixin, Tolkien, Dan Brown, Dahl, Hemingway, Dickens, and so on. I said, looking across a library, ‘I wish I had the mouth and stomach to devour every page’. When I wrote, and by osmosis, I took on traits of these magnificent authors, and I imagined them with the hunger, which made me feel part of a team, a team that never met on pitch or court. Most dead. But I connected with them and watched them write. Suffering and rejoicing. For I believed they knew what it takes, what one goes through to come out the other side, a writer!

Spending every day writing, I locked myself away in a concrete-roofed, bare-bricked shed. I liked that it resembled a prison cell, making me feel captured, contained. If King can write thousands of words a day, if Bukowski wrote authentic, structured dialogue, if Liu Cixin writes from the Chinese Revolution to the end of time, then I want to. I respect two types of people above all others: writers and boxers. Both get hit and hurt. But both fight back: regardless of the towering mountain of an opponent before them and even if they don’t beat that beast, Ivan Drago, they will die trying. Bukowski, a pissed and perverted pauper (most of the time), kept a spark, even when homeless and destitute, when getting old without success, because he knew that ‘a spark can set a whole forest alight.’ And that’s why I continued. And believed, not because sane men told me it’s impossible, but because insane writers and fighters showed me it was.

After the writing beats me up, it’s time to give it a proper thrashing back. The best writing deserves a good blitz. And you watch and wince as a beautifully crafted poetic passage is torn from the carcass. Often, it’s a cake with too much sugar, not enough cream, and a poor consistency of chocolate. The cherry sits patiently, and a writer, a true writer, never feels that the cake deserves the cherry to sit on top. Usually, it’s for another chef to arrive. ‘Enough is enough,’ they say, and you listen, and they look at your daft overzealous eyes and place a hand on your shoulder. ‘It’s time to let go.’ And you nod, a tear welling. ‘So put the bloody cherry on the cake,’ they shout. And you do, but you never think that cake is worthy.  

Inconclusive Conclusion! Unconventional in the sense that some seem to have to think long and hard about what they write, and I don’t. Conventional when editing, sort of, because the flow can arrive, and I forget I’m editing, and the editing becomes an extension of the writing process. And so, I must edit another day – because when it takes you, it bloody takes you.

RELEASE THE SHACKLES!

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Following our recent post by Laura De Vivo, another final-year BA Creative Writing student, CLAIRE SUZANNE, discusses her own experiences of writing a monologue and watching it in performance.

Claire (second from right) with fellow Creative Writing students (L-R) Laura De Vivo, Alessandra Leone, and Jamie Brown, at Metronome.

Always keen to make the most of opportunities provided by NTU, earlier this year I took part in a monologue writing workshop hosted by Sara Bodinar, a professional scriptwriter. Unlike most students, I attended online, so I didn’t benefit from the full workshop experience. Still, I decided to take on the challenge to write a monologue to be performed in a collaboration between NTU and Nottingham Actors’ Workshop.

Initially, my mind was as blank as my computer screen. I have drafts of novels, short stories and blog pieces cluttering my hard drive, but no monologues. Although we were given instructions – main character, three act structure – the page remained stubbornly blank on that first day. Disheartened, I decided to try again the next day, and managed to force out a story, but when I read it back it sounded sterile. My heart wasn’t in it, and this was immediately clear. It had no depth. It was a repetitive rant. I pressed delete.

With a familiar blank page glaring at me again, and only 24 hours before I was due to meet Sara in person for one-to-one mentoring, I had no choice but to freewrite. I closed the door, removed all background noise, and somehow managed to get into the zone.

I should mention that this is how I draft most of my fiction. I never plan, but I usually have at least some idea of a theme beforehand. This time, I had no idea what would come out: I just let my mind unleash whatever it wanted. What emerged was something I’d never written about before, something deeply personal that I rarely talk about openly. And this is how ‘Nearly Normal’, as I called it, initially came into being.

 Writing it was like therapy, unleashing inner frustration. When I met Sara in person, I sat on the opposite side of the table, shoved the printout towards her, and looked away in pure embarrassment for showing a stranger something so personal on our first meeting. Then: ‘I love it’, she said, smiling.

Of course, early drafts are never perfect, and work still had to be done, but her feedback was extremely encouraging. Not only did she tell me it was funny and flowed well, but she also told me it was very ‘current’. Little did I know I’d written about a subject that, after a lifetime of being dismissed, people were finally beginning to talk about.

Then she gave me the ultimate task: she challenged me to convey an entire neurodivergence in one page. So I went back to freewriting, and one hour later it was done. As simple as that. Dare I say it was easy? I think so, for once. The words had clearly been desperate to escape for years, and flew out like bats from a cave at dusk.

I sent it back for the actors to audition, received a congratulations e-mail from Sara, then heard nothing more until 23 April when it was performed by a wonderful actress at Nottingham Contemporary.

Luckily for me, my monologue was the first to be announced, so I didn’t have to endure a nervous wait. That didn’t make it any easier to hear my innermost thoughts being read out to a room full of strangers, though. I could barely look, and sat with my head in my hands, looking out between my fingers. But the actress clearly understood the part and did a brilliant job, and it was great to have validation when my amazing friend and partner in writing, Laura De Vivo, said ‘That’s you through and through!’

Freewriting (or not planning), a technique developed originally by Dorothea Brande, is endorsed by many writers I admire, such as Stephen King – and now also by me, a little writing enthusiast with big dreams. I feel my creativity has be unlocked. If I plan too much, I get a mental block: logic intervenes, and creativity is suppressed. Not thinking consciously enables me to tap into that little piece of creative paradise and allow the words to tumble out, like being a little tipsy and suddenly having an increased propensity to socialise! It’s like my imagination is locked in a different section of my brain, chilling with my confidence and social skills. My imagination, though, hasn’t been given a life sentence; my imagination can be released, and the key to it is freewriting.

Opportunities can follow one another, too. Since I began drafting this very blog post, I have been asked to read the monologue at the WRAP anthology launch on 21st May. Now, I’m certainly no actress, and reading on stage still terrifies me. But what is life without challenges? Bring it on!

Hope Dances with the Butterflies

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LAURA DE VIVO

Third-year NTU BA Creative Writing student Laura De Vivo discusses collaborating on a performance at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall – with brief cameos for several other NTU Creative Writing students, past and present!

It was a rainy Wednesday morning and I was making my way through the city to meet Paul Adey, a lecturer at Confetti and graduate of NTU’s BA, MA and PhD programmes, and various other creative types, in the belly of Metronome. I knew little about Paul and his work (he is the hip hop artist Cappo), though I’d gleaned a few things from the emails we’d exchanged when I had thrown myself at the opportunity of collaborating on reimagining a Greek Myth.

My confident stride slowed as I began to realise I didn’t know anyone else who was taking part. I arrived early, a little bedraggled, to find John and Kai, two NTU MA Creative Writing students and writers I knew from WRAP, and felt a little less uneasy.

Paul welcomed us with a cheery smile and took us to meet the four musicians and three other writers who would collaborate on the project. As Paul began to explain the requirements, I came to realise I really hadn’t read the small print – I’d just seen a writing opportunity and thrown myself at it. What was this talk of producing something in an afternoon and reading on the stage of the Royal Concert Hall?I made a mental note to read things more closely in future.

After the introductions we set to the task of brainstorming, discussing various myths we knew and how we could play with the images with both words and sound. Eventually, we settled on my suggestion of Pandora’s box. The notion that the world is in chaos, but we still have some control over an outcome, however negative the situation, seemed fitting.

Then I had to put pen to paper. Idea after idea was scribbled down, dissected, discarded, regurgitated, until I had something that would need serious editing, but at least it was something. I was rather unconfident about my efforts when we broke for lunch. Over the next hour my brain roared into overdrive: make it work, make it work, make it work repeated over and again in my head. I have never been able to produce something on the spot, I have learned I’m just not that kind of writer, but I wasn’t about to let the project, Paul, or Oba, the musician I was working with, down – so I just had to make it happen. I couldn’t wait for the stars to align. This was a lesson in collaboration outside of university. It was a lesson in the pressures that are out there for a writer.

With lunch done, it was back to the sound room. I still wasn’t happy with what I’d produced but it was time to show it to the group anyway. Despite the positive response, I went home to think, away from the pressure. And over the course of the two weeks between meetings I worked on it with Oba. By the one and only dress rehearsal we had something that had a little of both of us in it and we were happier. Ah, but Paul felt it wasn’t long enough!

I’d been given the task of writing ‘hope’, and was last to rehearse, giving me precious additional moments to write. I used the same words as the first stanza but with changes to create slightly altered images. Writing distracted me from the sheer size of the Royal Concert Hall, though periodically I also had to stop myself from counting rows in order to control the anxiety. How could I stand on that stage? Who wanted to listen to little old me?

Empty of props or equipment, the stage looked intimidating. I stared out at the empty auditorium, my heart pounding, as I read my poem calmly and slowly. I was relieved to get the last word out, and stood demurely as I was faded out.

Another two-week gap followed before the real deal. I tore my wardrobe apart looking for something that intimated hope, and opted with the floatiest dress I could find – a light apple-green one that, from a distance, looked white. It would do the job, I’m creative, after all.

I arrived at the theatre in time to watch the collaboration before ours. Then, at the halfway point, I slid out of my chair and ran around the theatre in the rain to the stage door. There we waited. The applause of the audience was our cue, and our part of the show began. I watched from the wings, my butterflies dancing harder as each writer read and left.  Being last meant I had to suffer the whole anxious agony of the wait.

 But when Oba began our music, I was no longer Laura the nervous writer, I was Laura the confident orator. Three and half minutes later, the collaboration was over, and the butterflies stopped dancing.

Has the experience deterred me from collaborating? Absolutely not, but in future I will certainly make sure I know what is required before jumping in! Despite my nerves, I have come to understand that I thrive in a collaborative project. Solo projects leave me with no one to make those final decisions with or bounce ideas off, whereas collaboration makes me part of a team, all pulling in the same direction to achieve the best possible outcome, something I couldn’t have done on my own. That is the real value in collaborative art.

FRIENDS FOR LIFE AT NTU: FORTY-SOMETHINGS CAN HAVE SOCIAL LIVES TOO!

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Claire Suzanne and Laura De Vivo met when they started the BA Creative Writing at NTU in 2022. Here, they reflect on joining the course, and on an enduring friendship.

Claire and Laura, arms around one another, looking at the camera. Laura wears a Nottingham Forest shirt, and Claire holds a Notts County certificate.
Laura (left) and Claire (right). Both are Premier League, in our opinion.

It was Open Day, January 2022. I remember it well, squinting in the sun as I pulled into the Clifton Campus car park for the first time.

I’d driven twenty miles to get there and was surprised to find the drive quite relaxing. I turned off my trusty sat nav and followed the directions to the Pavilion building, where my first port of call awaited – a free cuppa! I browsed the vibrant pink stands, chatting to friendly staff and feeling a happy, welcoming vibe, before finding what I was really there for: the BA Creative Writing taster session.

Prospective students chatted loudly, yet the atmosphere was peaceful. It wasn’t a big lecture theatre like I had imagined at uni, a place where I would be lost in the crowd, just a number, unknown to lecturers. No, NTU seemed different, and I became increasingly hopeful that the uni I’d written off as being too far from home could be a reality for me after all.

This was confirmed when I noticed… another mature student. She was at the front, me at the back, yet we both put our hands up to ask the same question: ‘Are there many mature students on the course?’

Like me, Laura had been out of education for a long time, and we hit it off immediately. After pairing up for our poetry task, ‘I come from’, we found out we were both parents, in the same age bracket, and that we’d had a similar life experience.

Afterwards, we headed over to the refectory for another free cuppa, where we exchanged numbers. Chatting to Laura was natural, authentic – it felt like we’d known each other for years. ‘You’d better choose NTU,’ she said before she left.

Her words resonated as I sat on a bench, later on that warm winter’s day, surrounded by trees and cradling my third cuppa. I distinctly remember looking around at the clean, modern, sunlit campus and feeling content that this was it, NTU was where I wanted to be. So, I rang my husband.

‘I love it!’ I squealed down the phone.

Before I knew it, I was enrolled – I was a uni student about to embark on what I knew would be a challenging but exciting journey to my degree. Laura and I got on like a house on fire and another student, Sam, regularly joined us for lunch. Sam is twenty years younger than us, but, at uni, age doesn’t matter. Like when the campus SU venue The Point was playing 90s music and Sam laughed when I told him I had the single on cassette!

As well as for lunch, Laura and I regularly met for a pre-lecture coffee after a hectic school run. We laughed together, moaned together, shared ideas and gave feedback on each other’s work. We were similar in our determination to succeed: both perfectionists, chasing a First in every assignment and revelling in the fact that, for the first time ever, we’d both found where we wanted to be. We even shared the same interests, hitting the gym in our joint determination not to age gracefully, and we joined WRAP, the university-wide reading and writing group, where we were published and read our work to an audience – something I thought I would never do, but being with a friend made everything easier.

When I was on campus with Laura, I wasn’t just a mother, just a wife, cleaner, tidier, payer of bills. At uni I could be me, the version of me that hadn’t been through years of stress and burnout. I was young again.

Laura will graduate this summer, whereas I will stay on as a part time student. It will be strange not seeing her around campus anymore. But I know she will be successful, wherever the future takes her. And I know I have made a friend for life at uni, something I didn’t think would happen when I was a forty-year-old first year!

CLAIRE SUZANNE

I had been checking, checking and re-checking my email for weeks. What I was expecting to see was something like ‘Sorry you don’t fit the criteria for our university,’ because I am an introvert, always convinced I will lose out. And then there it was, and all I had to do was open it and I’d know. I paced my living room a few times, hands on my head, as I waited for my dream to come crashing down on top of me. I clicked the email open and instead saw a big green circle saying congratulations.

I’d done it! My foot was in the door, so now I needed to have a good look at the place. I pulled in the car park, my husband and children in the car with me, and as much as I wanted to share this with them, I needed to do it alone. I watched the car drive away, leaving me standing there.

With my heart pounding I walked in the direction of the Pavilion – my new dress, bought for the occasion, billowing in the wind. I joined the queue of young people entering the building, many with their parents, and was handed a pink NTU tote bag filled with information. I quickly found the room I needed for the Creative Writing chat, slid into an empty seat, and waited. Everyone looked so young, I thought. I must be insane.

More people sheepishly arrived and found seats at tables that were empty. Everyone seemed to look a bit nervous. Then the lecturer, Anthony Cropper, appeared in his glasses, loud shirt and big smile [editor’s note: judge for yourself here!], and I quickly warmed to him. He introduced us to a poem exercise he called ‘Where I come from’, and said it was important we paired up. I had spotted a lady behind me and asked if she might like to work with me.

That was the start of it, and soon it felt like I’d known Claire my whole life. Later that day, we shared lots of facts about ourselves, the many hats we wear and how big this dream was. We both needed practical answers and so went in hunt of lecturers to ask our multitude of similar questions.

Just as we were about to leave, I asked if she’d like to swap numbers and learnt she had other options open to her. I didn’t, and I’d found someone I already knew I didn’t want to lose. ‘Make sure you chose NTU!’, I joked.

A few days later, Claire texted, telling me she’d chosen NTU. I was ecstatic. Now I knew I could do it. On our first day we found our spot in class, our spot on the balcony, our spot in the refectory. Over the first few weeks we found that some other students migrated towards us, and us to them. Slowly, Sam became one of our little group of fast friends, and it has remained so for three years. A lecturer refers to us as the Thrilling Three, a title I’m happy to take!

Life at uni as a mature student has been made wonderful by making friends. At our induction we were told, jokingly: ‘look at the person next to you, they might be at your wedding’. I’m married, so that won’t be the case for me. But in a place where I didn’t expect to find anyone, I found people who will be me my friends for life. And that has helped to make this life-altering decision priceless.

LAURA DE VIVO

JEWISH BOOKSELLERS IN NAZI GERMANY: SOME NOTES ON A RESEARCH TRIP

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Steve Katon

Last November and December, Steve Katon travelled to Berlin and the towns of Oranienburg and Pirna to conduct research for his Arts and Humanities Research Council Midlands4Cities-funded PhD in creative and critical writing. Here are some of his reflections.

My PhD project looks at the underrepresentation of disability in children’s literature. The creative part involves me writing a novel set in Nazi Germany covering the state-sponsored murder of disabled people which took place under the codename Aktion T4.

Thanks to funding from the AHRC, researching the novel took me to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and the permanent memorials of the Aktion T4 killing centres at Brandenburg an der Havel and Pirna-Sonnenstein. I talk about these in a blog post that I wrote for Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.

Below, I will focus instead on some research I undertook on bookshops that were trading in the period I am writing about, and in particular the fate of Jewish booksellers of the time. The main character in my novel is Friede, a girl with Down’s syndrome, who has been adopted by Bernard, a writer and bookseller, and his sister Dorothy, a doctor. Both siblings are Jewish.

A large part of my visit to Berlin was to help me to build a picture of Bernard’s bookshop and gain insights into the life of a Jewish bookseller in the years leading up to the war. To begin, I therefore visited the excellent Landesarchiv, which holds documents and photographs of the German capital’s institutions, businesses and residences.

I had corresponded with Carmen Schwietzer, the deputy director of the archive, before my visit. When we met in person, Carmen very kindly helped me to identify several Jewish booksellers in the districts of Charlottenburg and Schöneberg that were trading in the 1930s. While at the archive I looked at the original records of these. As you may imagine, many of the files are heavily administrative in nature and, as they were written by biased perpetrators, are not particularly revealing of their crimes. An example below relates to a Jewish bookseller called Willy Flanter, who, even after he had been banned from selling books, still fought to stay in business. The letter on the left shows his tenacity to continue trading by attempting to re-register his business as a manufacturer.

It was a privilege to study this archive. All the same, after many hours of poring through documents, I was keen to get out and explore the streets. And on a sunny Saturday morning I did just that.

A hero of Berlin bookselling is the so-called Lioness of Kurfürstendamm, Marga Schoeller. She started selling literature in 1929 and, though no longer in its original location, her shop is still trading today.

Schoeller, who is not Jewish, welcomed writers, actors, academics and students to her shop, forming, as she called it, the anti-Nazi intelligentsia of the city. She bravely reserved a good stock of banned material in a secret cellar, which was only opened for her most trusted customers. I am almost certain a fictional version of the Lioness will claw her way into my novel. If you find yourself in Berlin, I highly recommend a visit. The staff were friendly and helpful, and I could have stayed much longer than I did. But I had work to do.

When looking for inspiration for the exterior of my fictional bookshop, the name of one premises leapt out at me: Willy Cohn’s Book Corner, in Schöneberg. I found the location of the shop, which is now a rather nice cafe. Stopping here for refreshments, I imagined how my fictional characters might have inhabited it in the 1920s and 1930s.

I would have to rely on old photographs to get to grips with the layout of the premises when they were bookshops. But then I got lucky at the address of a 1930s Jewish bookseller called Ernst Hesse. There were no signs of a shop frontage: this is a block of apartments – though the architecture clearly predated the war. I imagine this was Hesse’s trading address and the door to the communal entrance had been left open. Looking inside, I was treated to the sight of an opulent hardwood handrail, some gorgeous interior doors and an original ceramic-tiled floor. Perhaps the inside of my fictional bookshop and the stairs to my character’s apartments will look something like this.

But what of the booksellers who lived in these places? How are they commemorated? There is an ongoing initiative known as the stolpersteines: 10cm square blocks set into the pavement outside the last known residences of victims of the Nazis. More than once, I found at my feet details of how their stories ended. Here are those of Willy Flanter and another famous Berlin bookseller called Arthur Cassirer, and their families.

I will end by saying your German may be better than mine, but if not, it’s perhaps enough to know that the word ermordet, etched into many of these stones, simply translates as ‘murdered’.

MAYBE THIS IS SOMETHING I COULD ACTUALLY PURSUE

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Helen Cooper is a graduate of our MA Creative Writing. Her third novel, The Couple in the Photo, was published by Hodder & Stoughton this year, and she is returning to the MA next term for a guest lecture. In this blog post, she discusses how the journey began.

People sometimes ask for my advice when they’re considering doing a MA in Creative Writing. They ask if I think it’s worth it, if it made a difference to my writing and career. I’m always cautious about advising people one way or another, because everyone’s different and there are so many factors to consider. But the truthful answer, from my point of view, is that doing the MA at NTU was one of the best decisions I made.

I started it in 2009, during a time in my life when I was deciding on my next steps. I had an English degree, was working in retail, and wrote stories in my spare time without showing them to anybody else. I wanted to do a postgrad, but the only thing that really got my heart pumping was the idea of doing an MA in Creative Writing. It felt a bit indulgent, but my family urged me to go for it, and I’m so glad they did.

There’s a long-running, sometimes controversial, debate about whether creative writing can be taught. And maybe there are some elements of it – and some elements of anything – that can’t; maybe you need a natural flair for language and storytelling. But if you have that, I strongly believe you can get much better by studying, practising, reading, reflecting, seeking feedback, and learning from more experienced writers. And for me, that process began with the MA.

During one of my first fiction seminars, as my peers and tutor Graham Joyce discussed a story I’d written, I remember having several epiphany moments. One was the realisation that showing people my writing was not as terrifying as I’d feared – in fact, hearing them talk about it as if it was worth their time was kind of lovely. And I realised you HAVE to show people your writing if you want it to work. You need insights into how your words come across, how you’re making people feel, the parts that are confusing or distracting or boring, even the parts that split the room. Those workshops taught me my first essential lesson as a writer: seek out feedback, reflect on it, then edit, edit, edit.

Learning to critique other people’s work was just as helpful. They say one of the major things a writer can do to improve is read widely. I’d always done that, but the MA showed me how to read like a writer, how to look for the craft behind the storytelling. Combine that with one-to-one meetings with a dissertation supervisor, guest lectures from industry experts, and all the extra discussions that happen before and after formal teaching, and I really did feel enriched, encouraged, and inspired. It was the first time I thought, ‘Maybe this is something I could actually pursue.’

And I did pursue it. Relentlessly! The MA was the start of my learning but it certainly wasn’t the end. Afterwards, I did some further short courses with Writing East Midlands and other local organisations; I continued in a writing group with friends I’d met on the MA; I devoured every book, magazine or blog post on writing I could find. Most significantly, I kept writing. I finished the novel I’d written for my dissertation – my first completed book – and began submitting it to agents.

That wasn’t, however, the fairytale ending! That novel got rejected more times than I care to remember. But I had some near-misses, and encouraging responses from agents about my writing. In fact, through this process, some of the things I’d been taught on the MA began to make even more sense. Know what you’re writing. Know your genre, your audience, your hook. I’d been told the importance of these things. But as I experienced the toughness of the industry first-hand, somehow it spurred me on rather than made me give up.

The third novel I wrote was the one that finally saw some success. I was teaching Academic Writing at Birmingham University by this point, and I will never forget receiving THAT email while I was halfway through giving a lecture. An agent called Hellie Ogden loved my book and wanted to take me on.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this was the fairytale ending. However, like all good stories, it wasn’t so simple. That novel went out on submission to various big publishers in 2014. Its first few rejections weren’t too troubling; they contained lots of praise, and phrases like, ‘I’m certain it’ll be snapped up elsewhere.’ Unfortunately, by the end, everyone had said the same! I was devastated, but my agent remained positive and determined, and I clung to two realisations. Firstly, several publishers had said they’d be keen to see future work; and secondly, they’d provided thoughtful feedback, which I could use. I set about a painstaking analysis of all their rejection notes. Afterwards, I knew what I needed to do next time: strengthen my ‘hook’ even further, increase the pace, and sit more firmly in the genre of psychological suspense.

The next book I wrote started from a simple scene I couldn’t get out of my head, and grew into a multi-perspective story about secretive neighbours embroiled in the disappearance of a teenager. In writing it, I drew on everything I’d learned up to this point, every piece of feedback or writing advice I’d ever had, and went all-out to try and nail it.

In September 2018, on my agent’s last day in the office before she went on maternity leave, we sold The Downstairs Neighbour to Hodder and Stoughton in a two-book deal. A few weeks later, we also sold the American rights. I now have three books published – the most recent being The Couple In The Photo, this year – and a fourth in progress. And I honestly don’t think it would’ve happened if I hadn’t written all those other books before it, starting with the one I submitted for my Creative Writing MA.

Creative writing courses aren’t magic bullets. But for me, the MA was just what I needed at the time: a chance to meet other writers, get feedback on my work, learn about the industry, learn about craft. To this day, when I’m drafting my novels, I still remind myself of a piece of advice I got from my dissertation tutor, David Belbin: “with ever chapter you write, think: what is the reader waiting to find out?” I’ve added other nuggets to that along the way – raise the stakes, my agent always says; give your characters clear goals, is one I got from my current writing group, Leicester Writers’ Club – and I’ll keep collecting them for as long as I keep writing. Striving to be a better storyteller does go beyond the length and scope of a creative writing course: it involves scribbling in notebooks, thinking in the bath, reading, being read, persevering, taking risks. But I’m not sure I would have got to this stage if I hadn’t taken that first leap.

Buy Helen’s most recent novel, The Couple in the Photo, here.

CREATIVE WRITING: NOT JUST A DEGREE

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Second-year NTU BA Creative Writing student Claire Hickenbotham tells us about her experiences on the course.

The look I got when I told people I was going to university! It was a look of awe, in most cases, actually: people were impressed that I, a 39-year-old parent, was resuming education twenty years after I had left it. Body language gave away what false smiles hid. I was making all this effort to study in higher education, to give up my job, my routines, my financial stability.

Reality hit when I found myself in a classroom with people twenty years my junior. Even the lecturer appeared younger than me! I retrieved my trusty pen and paper only to find most other people now use laptops, tablets, even phones. I wondered if I could cope in this new world of online learning rooms, Teams meetings, e-books. It was all so new to me. I had two choices: to embrace it and pursue my love of writing; or to run for the hills, drop out of uni for the second time, and forgo any chance to start again – student finance wouldn’t cover a third attempt.

But, as I settled into my new life as a student, doors started opening, doors that had previously been locked, or hidden. I realised how trapped I’d been, stuck in an admin job where I spent more time watching the slow ticking clock than enjoying the mind-numbing tasks issued by my boss. All the while I had a completed novel, short stories and blog entries clogging up my PC – all unread by the public, all wasting away on a hard drive. I didn’t know what to do with them. How does an unpublished writer become published? Where do you go? Who do you speak to?

The answers became clear at uni. Not only have the workshops and seminars helped me dramatically to improve my writing, but I have been made aware of competitions, magazines submissions, volunteering opportunities, writing groups. I joined WRAP, an NTU reading and writing group, where I met fellow students with a love of literature. They gave me the courage to enter my first competition. I cried when I found out I was a winner. My piece was published, and I had the privilege of reading it on stage. I walked out trembling, terrified I’d mess it up: I was way out of my comfort zone. But the applause made it all worthwhile. My work was finally out in the world.

Since starting my degree, I’ve made lifelong friends, my confidence has soared, and my writing is better than it’s ever been. I’ve been published twice, I work as a mature student ambassador, and I volunteer at WRAP. Being part-time allows me the opportunity to get involved in activities I may not have had time for otherwise. I live twenty miles away and juggle my commute with the school run, my studies with parenting. It’s not always easy. Finding time to write can be a challenge. But I am determined to get the most out of my time at university.

Creative Writing isn’t just a degree, it’s a a leap forward, and the achievement of a lifelong dream.