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 I'm glad that I didn't know, back in 2003 when I wrote my first novel, that six years on I'd still be unpublished and working on a fifth.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.