I am happy to say that I am currently very focused on my writing, thanks to Goldsboro writing academy!

Late last year, I was following Gareth Brown on Instagram, when I noticed that he was offering scholarships to Goldsboro for underrepresented writers. It seemed the perfect way to get back on track with my writing, and to learn from other writers, both published and unpublished.

I am very happy to say that I won a place, and that the course has been hugely transformational for me, giving me the opportunity to work through structural and line issues with my novel, and to be given invaluable feedback on my prose.

Working on a novel is a long and lonely slog, and it becomes so much easier when other people are alongside you. I had been stuck for a long time, and this is the first step in pulling me out of the mire. We have to be brave each session, reading extracts from our work in progress and pitching to one another. We also do writing exercises, challenging ourselves to write in different genres and time periods. This week, we were challenged to write a short paragraph (in under ten minutes) using the following techniques: describe a setting without saying what it is, describe a time period without saying what it is, and describe a person’s room without describing them.

Each time, it was a frantic but fun exercise, forcing us to lean into our descriptive language sparingly, leaving space for the reader to fill in the blanks. I was frazzled, but I enjoyed it.

Writing is a form of continuous ‘ego death’, and I ‘die’ a little every time someone interprets my work differently from what I intended. But, that’s the nature of this strange and consuming craft.

I look forward to more ‘death’ in the weeks ahead – hopefully, it will bring my novel to life!