The first workshops

This week, we learned that Louise Doughty can 'fix you up with as many policemen as you want, love,' and that she was not alone in being chatted up at the In Bed With... launch party with the line, 'What's a nice girl like you doing in an anthology like this?' 

In an effort to refrain from connecting the two, I'll recite the Louise Doughty Guide to Making the Most of Peer Review Workshops. 

• 90% of your feedback will be useless; 10% will be invaluable.
• Only you can tell which 10% will be useful to your work.
• Resist the temptation to defend yourself. 
• Novelists need rhinoceros hides because rejection doesn't get any easier.

Louise also mentioned Malcolm Bradbury's hatred of the excuse, But it really was like that; what life is really like is insufficient reason for doing it that way in art. This reminded me of a session on a different course. We were giving feedback about work with a promising premise that just didn't keep the reader's attention. The writer sat looking surprisingly smug and making no notes while we all sweated blood to try and help birth the story. Eventually someone asked why he was looking so pleased. 'Well,' he said, 'it's about a boring character, and you're telling me I've succeeded in getting that across.'

The first two writers on this course couldn't have been more receptive. The first, whom I'll call Alan Warner because his quirky, evocative and original piece put me in mind of Morvern Callar, was Louise's perfect sponge. He accepted every comment, only pausing to clarify points, and asked one question which gave rise to some excellent advice from Louise regarding plotting. Louise said that, whilst detailed plotting in advance works for some writers, she doesn't write consecutively herself. This frees her to write the scenes that feel real to her at any given moment; she isn't trapped or blocked by feeling forced to write a scene she's not ready for. The disadvantages seem confined to having to cut excellent work, and unwittingly submitting manuscripts with 'Big argument here' written in capitals half way down a page.

The second writer, whom I'll call Raymond Chandler, gave us a cinematographic, film noir picture of a rainy London night and a high-ranking policeman with whom at least three of the group fell in love. Raymond was praised for the lovely rhythms to the sentences, and for the evocation of place and atmosphere. At one point, Louise asked of a character, 'Is she blonde because she's blonde, or because she's drunk and has a slipping bra strap?' and advised, 'Try for something concrete, particular and different.'

AW and RC took away copies of their manuscripts annotated by every member of the group and both say they've found our comments helpful.

Or at least, 10% of them.

And the film versions will be made by David Lynch and the Coen brothers respectively.

Allies and Enemies week

At our second session, we concentrated on two things - firstly, what we were going to do about our enemies and secondly, the projects we're all intending to work on during the next six months. 

We've been both creative and committed. One group member's digging into savings for a nanny three mornings a week; another's cramming five days' work into three. We're giving up coffee or drinking more of it, rationing red wine, being firmer with our friends/ partners/ children. We're giving up on feeling guilty for putting our writing on the map of our day to day lives, whatever that might mean for those around us. Maybe we won't be thought of as such nice people any more; maybe that's the way it has to be.

Louise was delighted that we all have specific projects we want to work on. Or maybe her expression owed more to the thought of the party that she was going to afterwards - a celebration of a new anthology of erotica. Apparently the literary editors are all longing to know who wrote which story. The stories are all published under porn pseudonyms (name of first pet + name of the first road you lived in - Fluffy Grove, anyone?), and a list of the authors' real names. Louise is legally bound not to reveal who wrote what. We thought we had some inside information when she let slip that she'd written an alien abduction scene, but then she said she'd cut it. So no chance to tattle to the gossip columnists there then...

I don't think any of us found it easy to sum up our own projects. Any grand scheme condensed into two sentences is bound to sound inadequate at best, and trite, if not incomprehensible at worst - at least to the writer. What became clear, though, is that however hard we are on ourselves, we're supportive of and interested in each other. So interested, in fact, that the proffered disclaimers - this sounds unbearable, sorry for being so cliched, this is dreadful - faded away as we listened to each other.

Next week, the workshops begin. We've all been given writing samples for the first victims - sorry, willing volunteers - and we'll annotate them with positive feedback and constructive criticism in preparation for the session. This will give the writers an excellent degree of considered response as they move forwards.

My feeling is that the first workshops will mark the real beginning of the course. The housekeeping and the initial meetings are important - they prove that the ground's not going to give way beneath our feet. But tomorrow, with real words to analyse, real work to accomplish, real projects under real discussion, we'll start running. The first week really belonged to Tobias Hill; it was a privilege to be at his book launch. We met, swopped names, and learned where the toilets are. The second week belonged to Louise, who has contributed to a short story collection that's flying off the shelves and which made a highly effective smokescreen behind which we could hide our nerves at sharing our project ideas. But, with these initial hurdles overcome, tomorrow belongs to us - as long as we have the courage to take it.

The first week

The six month Faber Academy course began on Wednesday February 4th. There are twenty one of us altogether, divided into two groups. Apparently, the selection process was not easy - to start with, there were many more applications than had been anticipated (hence the two groups and the appointment of a second tutor). We're the twenty one who made it, and Louise Doughty assures us that we are all rather wonderful and show great promise. She also tells us that this is the last nice thing she'll be saying to us for six months.

'Would you have run the course if the applications hadn't been of an especially high standard?' one participant asks. Aspiring writers? Cynical? But the course isn't cheap.

'No,' says Louise, so flatly that we are all convinced and began to feel that maybe we are rather wonderful and show great promise.

For the first session. Louise asked us to think about our Allies and Enemies. Who and what are the people and things that help us to write, or that prevent us from writing? Some were obvious and uncomplicated - the need to work for pay, for example, or an addiction to Suduko. But as we continued to work on this, some precious things began to appear in a different light. Children, friends, partners - it can be hard to face up to the influences that prevent you from getting the words onto the page. Louise quoted Michele Roberts when she told us that one of the first things you have to sacrifice to be a writer is being thought of as a nice person. She sent us off to think about our enemies and to come up with constructive plans to tackle them. Her own silver bullets come in the form of the sugar free mints she keeps her desk to prevent her deserting in search of snacks. Divorce and infanticide seemed somewhat harsh in comparison, but at that point, I wasn't sure that anything less would fit the bill. 

The first evening coincided with the launch party for Tobias Hill's novel The Hidden and we'd all been invited for the final half hour. Over wine and canapes, I found that this whole writing thing is no bed of roses for anyone. Tobias Hill's a published poet and a hugely respected novelist and even he speaks with surprising diffidence about his work.

There aren't any easy answers. I'm glad that I didn't know, back in 2003 when I wrote my first novel, that six years on I'd still be unpublished and working on a fifth. In 2003, I thought that the secret to becoming a novelist was to actually write a novel. I did that. Then I thought that I'd have made it when I got an agent. I got an agent, and I'll never forget her first piece of editorial advice - she told me to change He quailed because quail is a game bird, not a verb. Why didn't I call it a day then, instead of wasting two further novels trying to convince her that the heel of the hand is an accepted term for the part below the palm that can be used to pin an unsuspecting character to a wall? But I didn't, and the price for that was high. Now, of course, I think of publication as the summit.

Apparently, it's not. 

I hope that one day, I'll be in a position to come back to that one.

We're a good group. You can feel the motivation around the Faber and Faber boardroom table. And Louise thinks we're all rather wonderful and show great promise. I can't wait to hear about everyone's projects. I can't wait to see what's going to come out of the next six months.

Allies and enemies. I am my own best and worst of both.