I’d signed up to the Arvon 5-day writing challenge. Each day started with an email containing a task set by . I had just finished reading Hunger and Thirst and was on a Claire Fuller high, so I was already excited by the prospect of the challenge.

I loved the ambiguity in Hunger and Thirst, the way it made me question what was real and what wasn’t. I hadn’t set out to write something in that style, but looking back, I think it must have influenced me on some level. The tension between what we believe and what might actually be true had clearly found its way into the story I wrote this week.

My expectation of the challenge week was this: each day we would receive a different creative writing prompt to get our brain juices flowing and to get people in the habit of writing regularly. I imagined I would have five fun, but probably unusable, disconnected pieces of writing. And that would have been absolutely fine, because the point was the act of writing itself, not necessarily what was produced.

My expectations were wrong.

I ended the week with a finished gothic psychological thriller short story of 7800 words (or is that a novelette?). That was very much not on my July bingo card.

(I must take a moment here to send my sincerest apologies to my 105,000-word speculative fiction novel, which was sat in the corner all week waiting patiently to be edited.)

Let’s look at how the week went:

Day One:

The first exercise was to pick up a novel I had read recently and use a random number generator to select a page, and then again to choose a random paragraph on that page. Then, setting a timer for five minutes, I had to take the first full sentence of that paragraph as my opening line and write from there without inhibition until the timer sounded. No stopping to think, correct, or edit.

I chose Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, which I had recently finished (I was going to use Hunger and Thirst but didn’t want to seem like too much of a fangirl).

The line that was randomly selected was:

Now, anyone who has read Rebecca will know that is a WILD sentence to have randomly picked. It is, in many ways, the premise of the entire book. It immediately set off a chain reaction of ideas for me.

I cheated already on Day One because I attended a The Writer’s Journey session (led by ) , so I knew I had an hour of uninterrupted writing time and I decided to use that to constantly write for this challenge, instead of the five minutes suggested.

As I wrote, I realised I was channelling some of the atmosphere of Rebecca, and that my writing style had naturally slipped into gothic territory, which is new for me, but something I had been wanting to explore for a while since attending a talk by .

I knew I wanted to pay homage to what makes Rebecca so compelling: the power of a person’s presence and the way they can come to dominate a story. A person whose influence reaches far beyond themselves, shaping the thoughts, actions and fears of everyone around them.

That first day I wrote 1250 words.

Day Two:

This exercise was about finding the ending sentence by using the same random generator technique. This is when it clicked – oh, we are working on a cohesive piece across the week here!

By this point, I had a just over a thousand words on the page, and the story was unfinished and chaotic. I had never written short stories before so my gut instinct was to include a lot of detail and dialogue, and I had no idea how I would wrap the story up.

The chaos was exactly what Claire had encouraged us to embrace. First drafts are rarely neat - they are about following ideas and seeing where they lead.

The sentence I randomly generated was:

Hm. Not the ending sentence I would have chosen! But in the spirit of the task, I didn’t pick another one (How many of you would have? I’m looking at you)

Instead, I trusted the process and accepted the strange little curveball I had been given. After all, the whole point of the exercise was to write without controlling every element.

So finally, I had a destination. I spent the time on Day 2 allowing the story to unfold, working towards that final line and seeing whether the ending I reached felt natural. It was interesting allowing a random sentence to shape the conclusion of a story that I hadn’t even planned to write a few days before.

It made me think that maybe some of my planning holds me back.

By the end of Day 2 I had 2800 words. I hadn’t quite managed to get a firm link to that final sentence, the end was a rushed few sentences that didn’t make much logical sense. But I didn’t overthink it!

Day 3:

The next stage was to look at the story with fresh eyes. Claire encouraged us to read our work aloud, which I always find helps with my writing as hearing the words spoken can reveal things that are easy to miss when reading silently. It can show where the story flows and where it stumbles and, worryingly often, where I’ve just left out key words.

The focus was not on polishing the language yet, but on stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. Did the story begin in the right place? Was there enough momentum? Did it actually feel like a story rather than a collection of scenes? Was the point of view working? This is exactly the stage I’m wrestling with in my novel at the moment, and I realised how naturally I gravitate towards tweaking individual sentences instead of looking at the bigger picture. I am, at heart, a detail orientated gal.

I read the story aloud to my sister, who was also taking part in the challenge, and it quickly became obvious that although I’d written a lot, I still hadn’t really moved the plot forward. I knew where I wanted it to go - I wanted people to die - but so far, no one had died yet. How dare they. It was time to stop expanding the world and start driving the narrative towards its conclusion.

My sister, meanwhile, had somehow produced a beautifully complete piece of flash fiction that reminded me of Virginia Woolf.

Rather than obsessing over individual sentences, I made notes about the structure, shifted a few scenes around, and started thinking about pacing instead of prose. The word count barely changed that day, but the story itself became much clearer. It was a useful reminder that writing is not just about producing words on a page, it is about shaping those words into an actual story.

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Day Four:

Day Four continued with a closer look at what was happening beneath the surface of the story. By this point, I had generated ideas, found an ending, and started reshaping the draft into something more complete. The next step was to look beyond the structure and think about the deeper elements that would make the story work.

I read my story aloud again and considered whether the changes I had made earlier were actually improving it. I asked myself questions about my characters and their motivations.

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As before, I made notes as I went, scribbling down ideas and identifying areas that needed more attention. I then implemented these changes, and I wrote. A lot. Because, guess what, I had another The Writer’s Journey session, which gave me an hour of accountability.

By the end of Day 4, I had around 5800 words. I had connected the main point of my story to the ending, and I had sharpened up some of the dialogue to be in keeping with the decade I was setting it in, the 60s. I was starting to think that I was actually producing something I could be kind of proud of.

Day Five:

I wasn’t able to do Day 5 on the Friday because I was out until late, and I won’t like – that made me twitch a little. By that point I’d become surprisingly invested in the challenge, so I set aside Saturday morning to give the final exercise the attention it deserved.

The last day was all about line editing. Up until then I’d been thinking about story, structure and character; now it was time to focus on the language itself. I read the story aloud yet again, but this time I wasn’t listening for plot. I was listening for rhythm. I paid attention to the opening and closing of each paragraph, looked for repetition, questioned every adjective and adverb, and kept asking myself the same question: is this the right word in the right place?

One exercise I found particularly interesting was thinking about the first word of every paragraph. It made me realise how often I default to starting sentences with I, and it forced me to vary my sentence openings more deliberately. I’m less convinced by the idea that every paragraph needs to end on a particularly strong word as I think it’s usually the sentence as a whole that carries the weight. But even questioning those choices made me read my work more critically.

The final challenge was to read the story aloud as though I were standing on stage at a literary festival. I didn’t quite commit to performing it to an imaginary audience, but I did send it to a friend instead. Fortunately, the atmosphere, ambiguity and ending all landed in the way I’d hoped.

I ended up writing far more on this day than the exercise intended. I had the Arvon Saturday Writing Club in the morning, the sun was shining, and I was just inspired to write. By the end of the day the story had grown to around 7800 and I finally felt like I had a complete piece of writing in my hands: a psychological gothic story filled with suspense, ambiguity and far more confidence than I expected when I started the challenge.

My story is called Penelope.

So what did I learn from this experience?

1. I can write a complete story in a week.

On Monday morning I had no idea what I was going to write. By the weekend, I had a finished story. That genuinely surprised me, and I came away feeling an enormous sense of achievement.

2. I can write a short story

I’d never tried before because I’d convinced myself it would require meticulous planning to keep it concise and make every word count. Ironically, having the first and last lines chosen for me gave the story enough structure that I could simply focus on filling in the middle.

3. I still have work to do when it comes to restraint.

Whether this counts as a short story or a novelette, I’m still a bit of a waffler. I suspect many readers would look at any of my writing and say that 20–30% could be cut. Learning when to stop explaining and trust the reader is definitely something I want to keep working on.

4. I can write in different genres.

I hoped this was true, but I think I’d quietly assumed I’d be pigeonholed into speculative fiction because that’s what my novel is. I came away feeling much less worried about being defined by a single genre. If a story wants to become psychological gothic fiction, I’m happy to follow where it leads.

5. I like being held accountable.

No one was checking whether I’d done the work, but doing the challenge alongside my sister, using The Writer’s Journey sessions as dedicated writing time, and knowing a new prompt would arrive in my inbox every morning kept me moving forward. It made me realise how much external structure helps me build momentum and motivation.

If you’re interested in creative writing, I’d really recommend checking out some of the courses that Arvon offer. They have online and residential options, tutored and untutored. Arvon have been a massive influence in my writing journey this year, and all the tutors and course teachers I have encountered have been inclusive, supportive and incredibly knowledgeable.

I would particularly encourage you to try out their Saturday Writing Club, which is a donate what you can session, and enables you to spend an hour once a month writing short creative pieces just for the fun of it, whilst linking up with other writers all over the world. It’s a very low pressure, relaxed way to do some writing with other people.

So yes, apologies again to my 105,000-word speculative fiction novel, which is still waiting patiently for edits, but I have a feeling this won’t be my last detour. I’m already itching to borrow another opening and closing line from a favourite novel and see what happens in between. If this week has taught me anything, it’s that a few constraints can sometimes unlock far more creativity than a completely blank page.

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For most of my life, I thought being exhausted was just part of who I am. I thought everyone felt like they were dragging themselves through the day, fighting to stay awake, waking up tired and going to bed even more tired. Then, a year ago, I started air pressure therapy using a CPAP machine.

I had seen my mum and my uncle use one and always thought: that’s a them issue, not a me issue. Except it turns out it was very much a me issue.

Since starting to use that machine in July last year, I have slept better than at any other point in my life.

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The title of this article is somewhat misleading. Unlike the character in ’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I have not achieved my rest through a cocktail of prescription drugs and sleeping my way through life.

And despite getting more rest, this year has been far from relaxing. It’s been full of upheaval, uncertainty and change. My life didn’t magically become easier because I slept better. I just stopped have to face it while chronically sleep deprived.

It seems wild to me now to think back to those nights of restless sleep. When I had my sleep study, the hospital told me I was waking up around 80 times an hour on average. That’s more than once a minute. I genuinely cannot comprehend that.

Looking back, I think I always assumed I was just someone who was bad at sleeping. Which sounds ridiculous because I can usually fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Anywhere, anytime. I have fallen asleep on sofas, on planes, during films, probably during conversations if you gave me enough time.

But sleep itself has never been simple for me.

As a child, I developed severe anxiety around it after an operation. I genuinely believed that every time I fell asleep, something terrible would happen. My family would leave me. Or they would die. At the very least, I thought I would wake up and everyone would be gone.

I remember going under for my adenoidectomy and the last thing the nurse said to me was:

“Say goodbye to your family.”

Now, obviously, she meant “say goodbye because you are going into surgery”. My child brain heard: “Say goodbye because everyone is dying.”

Not quite as casually as that... I went under absolutely terrified, and I came around equally distressed. My parents could hear my screams from the waiting room.

Once I was home, I developed some interesting sleep habits. I had to say a specific string of words before bed. Most of them I cannot remember, but one was definitely “beh-leh-beh-leh-beh-leh”, which I believe was my childhood word for a balloon. Don’t ask me why I felt the need to include this in a list of words before sleep, who knows what was going on in that tiny little mind.

My parents also had to sit outside my bedroom door where I could see them until I fell asleep. Slowly, they tried moving further and further away, which was met with absolute outrage.

“IF YOU LOVED ME YOU WOULD SIT OUTSIDE MY DOOR.”

“ALL THE OTHER GIRLS’ DADDIES WOULD STAY OUTSIDE THE DOOR.”

Man, what a knob, right? I was that classic age of just learning how to negotiate (cough, manipulate) and, in that moment, I felt no shame because I genuinely believed I was doing this to keep them there, to keep them safe.

Isn’t the brain bizarre?

Eventually, my parents graduated from sitting outside my door to sitting on the stairs where I could hear them. Then they moved downstairs where I could hear them typing on the computer or even further to the lounge where I could hear the television playing in the background. Slowly, my brain learned that they could leave my doorway and still exist.

The list of words I had to say before bed was solved in the most scientific way possible: bribery. My older sister told me she would give me chocolate if I replaced the entire ritual with simply saying “I love you and all the things I say”. And just like that, chocolate defeated anxiety. What can I say? Sometimes bribery works.

Finally! I was getting down quicker, and my family could have their evenings back downstairs.

Then came the sleepwalking.

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I can’t remember the first time it happened, but I know my sister was still living at home, which means I must have been young. It was probably around the same time as the whole adenoidectomy situation, thinking about it now.

One dream I remember vividly involved climbing down the pyramids in Egypt in the blazing heat. I woke up to a loud screeching noise. We had a cockatiel at the time, and I had managed to sleepwalk downstairs and stand next to her cage.

My parents woke up to find both me and the cockatiel in absolute hysterics, me screaming the house down.

Another time, I woke up devastated because my favourite Tigger toy had disappeared. I refused to sleep without him. Turns out, I had sleepwalked during the night, stuffed him into a drawer and closed it, much to my Dad’s amusement.

My sister also regularly got the worst of it. I would sleepwalk down the hallway, open her bedroom door and stand there asleep. Imagine a scene from The Grudge. Long hair hanging over my face. Arms dangling. Head tilted forward. A tiny sleep demon.

Once again, my parents were woken up by screaming.

But my greatest sleepwalking achievement happened on holiday. I shared a hotel room with my sister, while my parents were staying in a room upstairs. During the night, I managed to unlock my hotel room door, navigate the stairs, find my parents’ specific room and knock. When they opened the door, confused and half asleep, I woke up.

“I need the toilet,” is all I said.

They walked me back to my room, only to find the door had locked behind me. They had to knock to wake my sister, who woke up to find the bed next to her empty.

And you guessed it - more screaming.

My dad then had to explain to the night manager that they should probably keep an eye out for a small child sleepwalking her way out of the building.

I think that experience cemented my fear of what I was capable of when I wasn’t conscious. I have always loved the idea of staying on a canal boat, for example, but I avoided it for years because I imagined myself sleepwalking straight off the side, in to the murky waters.

Eventually, I got over that fear and went on the big boy barge.

(Otherwise known as a cruise ship. I’m pleased to report I survived.)

Alongside the sleepwalking, I also had incredibly vivid dreams. Often recurring. Sometimes lucid.

One recurring dream involved standing at my parents’ lounge window looking over the valley. I would see a tornado forming in the distance, then I would realise it was moving towards us. I would desperately try to convince everyone else that it was coming, but nobody would listen. I remember the frustration and fear tearing through my chest when nobody would listen. I always woke up before the tornado reached us.

Another recurring figure was a fox. In one dream, I was sitting in my friend’s family car while they went into a shop. The sunroof was open. I watched a fox slide across the car park, climb onto the bonnet and make its way inside. I couldn’t unlock the car doors to escape. I always woke up before anything happened.

The fox kept appearing in different dreams. He never reached me. Always approaching but never arriving.

(I’m sure there are some dream analysts out there having a field day over this.)

There was also a period in my early teens where my sleep became completely disjointed. Let’s blame puberty for that one.

My brain would latch onto a repeating pattern and refuse to let go. A Manic Street Preachers song on a loop: “Your love alone is not enough, not enough, not enough.” Or a hula hoop spinning endlessly. I would think, “I’ll sleep when it stops”. It never stopped.

Slightly dramatic there, I obviously did sleep. But it felt like it never stopped and it felt like for a few months I never slept.

As an adult, the strange sleep continued, just with less dramatic sleepwalking and more embarrassing physical re-enactments of my dreams.

I would dream about cycling and wake up with my legs moving. I would wash my arms in thin air. I would kick out. I would throw myself out of bed. It felt like as I aged, I got lazier and my body wanted to sleepwalk but couldn’t be bothered to trek around the house and down the stairs.

I would wake up multiple times a night to go to the toilet, convinced I could reset myself and finally fall into deeper sleep. I later learned that the adrenaline from constantly waking up and feeling like I was falling off a cliff was probably the reason I needed four or five toilet trips a night.

I would look at the clock: 1am. 2am. 3am. No matter how tired I was, I could never reach that deep, restorative sleep.

I woke up exhausted every single day. I have a 60-mile round commute, and I used to struggle to stay awake while driving. I would feel myself drifting off at my desk. I would lose focus during conversations and worry people would think I was bored. I wasn’t bored, I was just fighting my own brain. I googled narcolepsy constantly, convinced that must be what was wrong with me.

Eventually, I normalised it. Everyone says they are tired, don’t they?

So I joined in with the jokes everyone made about how tired they were and how was it only Monday and how they couldn’t wait to get to bed already.

I told myself the depression I was feeling was just prolonged grief. I didn’t consider that my brain was basically being deprived of oxygen every night. I was not able to face the fact that I needed help, both physically and mentally. And I am living with the consequences of that today.

But now, every night, I wear a mask that blows air into my face and makes me sound like Darth Vader. And that might not be forever. But it is my now. And my now looks like ACTUAL UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP.

The strange thing is that even when I have a “bad night’s sleep” because of my mental health, and I only get four hours, those four hours are deep, proper sleep.

Four hours of good quality sleep is enough to function. That has shown me just how little sleep I was truly getting before.

My mind and my body feel brighter and lighter. I can focus. I am not constantly running on adrenaline. I don’t have to eat while driving to try and stay awake. I can sit through an entire film. I can drive myself places late at night. I have my freedom back. I can walk more (although also getting diagnosed with asthma would have helped that – it’s been quite the year).

I actually enjoy going to bed now. I enjoy reading. I enjoy the whole ritual of an adult bedtime (steady on).

Because I no longer fear the battle waiting for me every night.

Since starting CPAP, I’ve bloody gone and written the first draft of my novel and am working through the edits. I never thought that would ever be something I could achieve.

I joked with my friends that I was now like the film Limitless, suddenly accessing some hidden percentage of my brain that had been locked away.

Part of me is curious what I would have created sleep deprived. Maybe there was some strange, altered-state potential creativity there. Something like Aldous Huxley writing Doors of Perception.

I did journal at times, and I wrote poetry. I keep meaning to go back through it because there might be some genuinely trippy gold in there.

Or it might just be the work of a very tired person who needed a nap.

Either way, I’m intrigued.

So no, this hasn’t been my year of rest and relaxation in the Ottessa Moshfegh sense. I haven’t escaped from my life, I’ve just finally had enough rest to properly show up for it.

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The bug stayed in my thoughts afterwards, so I wrote a short poem about it.

The Bug on the Windscreen

There was a bug on my windscreen
So calm and small and still,
The world went roaring past unseen,
As he held his place at will.

His knees were bent against the force,
He didn’t seem afraid,
As though this high-speed motor race
Was a conscious choice he made.

I watched him like I watch my thoughts
When they won’t stay in line,
Clinging where they shouldn’t go
But somehow, I manage just fine.

I wondered if he had a plan,
Or feared that he may fall,
Or whether bugs, like certain men,
Don’t question much at all.

I thought of all the times I’ve tried
To map out what comes next,
And found the future often responds
With something uncomplex.

The bug, of course, did nothing wise,
No lesson to impart,
He simply stayed there, through the drive,
A speck of stubborn art.

And when at last he disappeared,
As things they tend to do,
I smiled and caught a passing thought:
I could let go too.

- KJ Ferrari

It was only a bug on a windscreen during an ordinary drive home. Nothing about it was unusual, and nothing changed because of it. But it stayed with me anyway, in the way small, ordinary things sometimes do.

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That image feels stable. But Iceland’s history disrupts it.

Across most of Europe, around 70–80% of people executed for witchcraft were women. In Iceland, the pattern was reversed: roughly 90% were men. Similar male-heavy patterns also show up in parts of Finland and Estonia.

A small fact, but definitely an interesting one, because it immediately unsettles something that feels very fixed in the imagination: that witches are, almost by default, considered women.

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If witches weren’t always women, then where did that certainty come from?

What interests me isn’t just the Icelandic exception. It’s that it never became the dominant story. Somewhere between court records, sermons, and folklore, one version of the witch survived and another didn’t.

Earlier this week, I went to a Seed Talk by Dr Julie Phillips on The History of Witchcraft & Women: Magic, rituals & the patriarchy. I went for practical reasons more than anything else as I’m working through ideas for a future novel that might involve witchcraft, and I wanted to a sense of what remains once you strip away the fantasy versions.

I left thinking less about witches as a subject, and more about how the idea of a witch was built.

Accusations of witchcraft were never just isolated events. They were interpreted through existing beliefs, and those beliefs shaped what the accusations became. “Someone did something” slowly becomes “this is what people like that do.”

That is where the witch stops being just a case and becomes a literary figure.

And by literature, I mean that in the wider sense: trial records, pamphlets, sermons, gossip, retellings, and the eventually fiction. Each layer removed detail. The individual case became less important than the pattern it seemed to confirm.

In most of continental Europe, this was reinforced by theological writing on demonology, like the Malleus Maleficarum. First published in 1487, it went through numerous reprints between the late 15th and 17th centuries and was widely circulated in parts of Europe, giving it significant reach in shaping how witchcraft was discussed and prosecuted.

The text reflects a broader framework in which witchcraft was associated with moral and sexual corruption, tied to the body, reproduction, childbirth, and social disorder. These anxieties were disproportionately directed at women. Rather than functioning as scripture, it operated as an authoritative reference within the institutions that defined and prosecuted witchcraft.

So, a stable figure emerges: the witch as woman. Old woman. Outsider. Morally ambiguous. Dangerous knowledge. Slightly out of place.

That figure carries into folklore and then into literature. By the time it reaches Shakespeare, fairy tales, Gothic fiction, and modern fantasy, it already feels established.

Male equivalents exist, but they are named differently: wizard, sorcerer, mage, magician. These terms carry a different weight. They imply training, structure, legitimacy. Even when dangerous, the threat is usually contained at an individual level. A wizard is rarely treated as a category of social contamination in the way a witch is.

Modern fantasy has softened these boundaries, but it hasn’t removed them. Witches still tend to be read as female-coded, while wizards and sorcerers sit closer to formal or institutional power.

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What matters here is this: fiction does not inherit reality. It seems to inherit what reality has become through repetition.

That is why modern fantasy can still default to female witches and male wizards, even when historical cases are more mixed than that suggests.

There is also an argument that accusations against men did not scale in the same way. They remained more individualised, tied to specific disputes rather than forming a general statement about what men “are.” And what does not scale in narrative rarely survives as archetype.

That is where Iceland becomes interesting. It shows what happens when numbers do not turn into narrative. The records exist, but they do not become a widely shared archetype.

In Iceland, accusations against men did not reshape what masculinity meant. They remained individual cases. Elsewhere in Europe, accusations against women attached more easily to existing anxieties about gender and disorder, and so they generalised.

Cultural memory tends to keep what fits an existing frame. It discards what does not.

It raises a question I can’t answer: if the pattern across Europe had been reversed (if most accused witches had been men) would “witch” still mean a woman? Or would it have become neutral, or even male?

Would power alone have shaped the category, so that “witch” attached itself to whoever was positioned as the social threat?

I have no answers, which I’m aware is rather annoying but this page is for curiosity not for conclusions.

What this suggests though is that historical pattern becomes literary figure, and that literary figure becomes the version of the past we think we know.

Outside witchcraft, the same process appears in how fiction slips into perceived reality.

Sherlock Holmes is fictional, but treated as if he has a physical footprint. People visit Baker Street, leave tributes, and treat the character as tied to physical space. That effect is reinforced by institutional and commercial signals, including his presence in Baker Street Underground imagery and signage.

Robin Hood and King Arthur sit between myth and history. Whatever their origins, centuries of retelling have turned them into narrative figures first. Real places like Sherwood Forest and Tintagel are mapped onto them afterwards, reinforcing the idea that the story has geography.

Dracula works in a similar way, attaching fiction to Vlad the Impaler and turning Transylvania into a literary afterlife.

Religious texts operate differently, but a similar mechanism is still visible. The Bible is a collection of writings shaped by translation, editing, and transmission over time, yet for many it functions not only as literature but as authoritative truth.

Meaning seems to shift from what is written, to what is repeatedly reinforced. Once that happens, some stories become entertainment, others heritage, and some become doctrine. The boundary between story and reality stops behaving cleanly.

Obviously, I’m not in any way saying that my writing is on the level of the previously mentioned texts, but I do think it’s important for writers to be aware of how repetition shapes what we believe. Every story we tell has some power to create a pattern, and it’s worth thinking about which patterns we’re adding to and which ones we might question.

So this is what I’m taking into my writing.

• Don’t let gender do the work of explanation. It’s not a shortcut for motive, personality, or role in a story.

• Don’t reduce people to functions. Even minor characters should feel like they exist beyond the scene they’re in.

• Pay attention to repetition. When the same pattern keeps appearing, it may be reinforcing beliefs, not just telling stories.

Stories don’t copy reality. They take pieces of it, leave others out, and turn what is left into patterns that are easier to remember.

What stories from your own culture or history have shaped how you see the world? I’d love to hear your examples.

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Since joining, I’ve attended every month, carving out an hour of my Saturdays. Sometimes I’m in the comfort of my own home alone, or with friends who have stayed over, or at my sister’s house. Or even up a mountain in Wales. The location changes but the habit has stayed intact.

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The format is simple. Two writing prompts, an interview with a guest author (who often brings great book recommendations), and optional breakout rooms to talk with other writers. There’s no requirement to share work, which removes a layer of self-consciousness, and makes the space feel welcoming, low-pressure and experimental rather than performative.

I tend to use the prompts in two ways: either to develop material for my novel, or to push myself into writing something outside my usual patterns. Over time, I’ve realised the value isn’t in producing finished work in the moment, but in training myself to keep writing without stopping to judge every line. It feels like a safe space to practice playing around with different themes and styles.

I keep a red notebook for these sessions, and other similar writing workshops. I return to it often as I love flicking through older fragments of writing. Some pages are messy, I must say, and not worth revisiting. Others spark something in me, containing something that feels like it might lead somewhere: an idea for a short story, a memory of what I was thinking on that day, or just a reminder that, yes, I can write.

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Some of the prompts have challenged me in unexpected ways. In December, the guest writer was Rachel Long. The exercise was to write continuously whilst she read out random words, which we had to incorporate into our writing without pausing to plan.

I’m going to share what I wrote. The starting word was apple, the other words in red were the prompt words that were introduced as we were writing.

I took a bite out of the crisp, red apple; juices running down my chin and saturating my shirt. I pull the shirt off over my head and toss the apple on to the blanket. It’s time for a pond dip, I decide, so I plunge myself into the river.

All my complicated, overanalysed thoughts start to float away downstream and I am left with quiet serenity. Suddenly, a siren plays in the background: sharp, echoing, intrusive. I throw my hands up over my ears. Surely, not yet? I still have a belly-full of the picnic, I can’t face another feast yet. But when the sirens sound, we know we must gather and we must share in a little prayer together, thanking god for a bountiful feast.

I make my way to the hall, large and looming, and sit next to my sister. Beside her is Mother, looking clinical in her presentation as if about to perform an operation on the feast in front of us. We have a small margin of time to eat what we can before it all gets burnt to ash.

Now, by no means is this a work of art – quite far from it, in fact. It isn’t polished or controlled. But it is somewhat cohesive, and there is the hint of an interesting premise there: a sense of a slightly unnerving society where eating is regulated by time, where food only exists safely within a narrow window before it turns to ash. Isn’t it amazing how quickly the mind can connect ideas that seem completely unrelated?

What matters more is how it was produced. It had to keep moving. There was no time to think further than the next word, no time to step back and judge it, no time to edit and re-edit and then delete it all anyway... (we’ve all been there, right?).

That is what I’ve started trying to bring into my own writing. On paper, under time pressure, I don’t stall in the same way. On a laptop, I tend to slow down almost immediately, editing as I go until I lose momentum entirely. But what I realise is that I don’t write differently because I’m on paper. I write differently when I can’t stop to judge what I’m writing.

I have also attended an Arvon course led by , where one of the clearest lessons was simple: get the words down. Don’t edit while drafting. Don’t interrupt the flow with judgement. I’ve learnt now that this approach makes it easier for me to follow where the writing wants to go, rather than forcing it into shape too early.

Now this is likely to cause all you plotters out there to have heart palpitations, but in practice it just means separating drafting from editing. First comes the raw material. Only later do you decide what survives. Why not try this for a future first draft?

I’m still learning to do that consistently. But the point of the Saturday Writing Club, and of these exercises, is not to produce perfect writing. It’s to produce writing at all, and to trust that a gem might be buried amongst all that dirt.

And what an exciting thought that is.

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Later in this article I’ll be sharing:

• A book that exceeded my expectations

• A book that met my expectations

• An author I discovered

• A unique style of writing

• A beautiful book

• A book that made me slow down

• A character I wasn't ready to leave behind

• Book recommendations

I set myself a target at the start of the year to read 100 books in 2026, as it's the National Year of Reading. I’ve really fallen in love with reading again since starting to write my book. When I was studying, I found I read for pleasure less because I was being made to do so much academic reading in my spare time. It felt like my brain couldn’t absorb any more words in the moments in between essays and assignments.

Then I finished my Masters and I started working again full time, and, sure, I read here and there, but nothing like I do now. The temptation of the doomscroll would loom heavy, and after a stressful day sometimes I needed the swiping thumb action to just lull my brain in to switch off mode. Now I can escape into stories again.

I occasionally get melancholic about all the books I could have read by now if I’d always had the reading habits I now possess. But mostly I'm just glad I found my way back to reading.

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Nowadays I always have three books on the go: one audiobook, one on Kindle and one in print. I know many writers say they can’t read other fiction when they are writing, but I find it helps me immensely. I’m not saying I steal ideas from other people’s books or anything, but there might just be a simple scene in a book that makes me think ‘Huh.. I don’t think I have a restaurant scene in my book. I could have this bit of dialogue happen over dinner’.

I definitely read books with a slightly different lens now, one that I can’t seem to turn off. I’m looking at first lines, chapter transitions, chapter length, dialogue tags; the mechanics behind the story. But rather than diminishing the experience, I really feel like it enhances it. Reading as a writer adds another layer; it makes me think more carefully about every word.

Reading this year has opened my eyes to so many new things: I have learnt about different cultures, I’ve become momentarily hyper-focussed on a particular moment in history, I’ve read novels, short stories, creative non-fiction, I’ve discovered the Women’s Prize, I’ve joined a book club! I’ve dabbled in my first experiences of fantasy and ‘smut’, one of which I enjoyed much more than the other – I’ll leave you guessing as to which…

Reading this much hasn’t made me smarter, but it has made me more curious. I spend less time scrolling and more time thinking. My attention span feels stronger. I’m more observant as a writer and more empathetic as a reader. I’ve also become the sort of person who can somehow weave a book recommendation into almost any conversation. The books themselves matter, but so does the habit of making space for them.

Enough chat - let’s dive into a few of these books:

A book that exceeded my expectations:

The Women by Kristin Hannah

This was an interesting one because, based on the reviews, my expectations probably should have been high from the start. But I had never really ventured into historical fiction before and, if I’m honest, the genre alone made me hesitant. The only reason I picked it up was because it was our book club read.

I was completely blown away.

After finishing it, I spent the best part of a month hyper-fixated on the Vietnam War, reading articles and falling down internet rabbit holes. I even found myself irrationally annoyed while watching Platoon because there wasn’t a single woman in sight. That probably tells you everything you need to know about how deeply this book got under my skin.

It was harrowing, intimate, insightful and informative all at once. The writing was so vivid that entire scenes played out like a film in my head. I’ve recommended it to countless people since reading it, which is probably the highest compliment I can give a book.

A book that met my expectations:

All The Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

Sometimes you pick up a book and know almost immediately that it’s going to be for you. That was my experience with this one.

By the end, I felt as though I knew every character personally. I watched them grow, make mistakes, experience joy and endure unimaginable trauma. The short chapters created a momentum that made it feel impossible to put down. I seemed to race through hundreds of pages without noticing.

Perhaps what impressed me most was learning that Chris Whitaker has never visited many of the places he writes about. There is such confidence in his depiction of setting that I never once questioned it. The world felt completely real to me, which made discovering that afterwards all the more remarkable.

It’s rare for a book to be both sweeping in scope and deeply intimate, but this managed it.

An author I discovered:

Virginia Woolf

Please don’t judge me too harshly for only just properly discovering Virginia Woolf.

I read A Room of One’s Own during a solo writing retreat and it genuinely felt like a lightbulb switched on in my brain. I was struck by how eloquent she was and how relevant many of her observations still feel, despite writing over a century ago.

Since then I’ve read To the Lighthouse, Orlando and On Being Ill, and I’ve accumulated copies of her diaries and letters that I now dip into from time to time. I completely understand why she isn’t for everyone, but I find her stream-of-consciousness style fascinating. Reading Woolf often feels less like reading a story and more like being allowed access to somebody’s thoughts, and that is so appealing to me.

A unique style of writing:

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

One of my favourite reading experiences this year came from a tiny detail.

In the novel there is an infestation of gnats in a church. As the story progresses, words containing “na” are interrupted by an extra “g”, as though the gnats themselves are buzzing into the text.

It sounds strange, but it worked brilliantly. Every time it happened, it interrupted the rhythm of my reading for a split second. I became aware of the gnats in exactly the same way the characters would have been aware of them: constantly present, mildly irritating and impossible to ignore.

It was such a clever piece of craftsmanship. I spent most of the time I was reading the book telling anyone who would listen about “the gnat thing”.

A beautiful book:

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Some books leave you thinking about their plot. Some leave you thinking about a particular character. My Friends left me thinking about people in general.

The author has a remarkable ability to write characters who feel completely real, full of contradictions and flaws, yet impossible not to care about. There is so much warmth in his writing, even when he is exploring grief, loneliness or regret.

It’s difficult to explain exactly why I found this book so beautiful. It simply made me feel more compassionate towards other people by the time I reached the final page.

A book that made me slow down:

Should We Fall Behind by Sharon Duggal

I read this ahead of an Arvon retreat where the author would be running workshops, and I’m very glad I did.

I hesitate to describe the book as relaxing because that can sound like a backhanded compliment. It isn’t a book driven by dramatic twists or relentless plot. Instead, it focuses on the interconnected lives of people living on the same street.

I loved how invested I became in each character, each with their own unique voice that came across so clearly. I feel like it changed the way I look at people I pass in everyday life. It made me think more carefully about homelessness, not as a distant social issue, but as individual lives that could so easily sit alongside any of ours. The book doesn’t dramatise people’s lives, it trusts that ordinary lives are interesting enough on their own, and I think that’s a confidence many novels lack.

A character I wasn't ready to leave behind

The Mercy Step

One of the things I thought was so clever about The Mercy Step was the way the narrator’s relationship with her own trauma evolves over time. The events themselves don’t change, but her interpretation of them does. As she ages, gains perspective and accumulates new experiences, she revisits parts of her past with a different understanding. Mercy is a fascinating, complex and deeply lovable character, and by the end of the novel I felt genuinely invested in her life.

It felt incredibly honest. We often talk about trauma as though it is a fixed thing, but I feel this book proves how our attitudes towards our experiences can shift throughout our lives. I found myself thinking a lot about my own memories and self-understanding as I read it.

Knowing that the novel draws on elements of ’s own life added another layer to the reading experience. It felt especially meaningful to hear her read from it at the Women’s Prize Live event in 2026. There was something quite special about hearing those words in the author’s own voice after spending so much time immersed in the story.

Recommendations

For anyone looking for recommendations, other books I have rated highly this year are:

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

• To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

• My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

• The Correspondent –

• The Names – Florence Knapp

• The Wedding People – Alison Espach

• Wild Dark Shore – Charlotte McConaghy

• Flashlight – Susan Choi

• Yesteryear –

• The Secret History – Donna Tartt

• Yellowface -

• The Mother Fault -

• Fundamentally –

• Dominion - Addie E. Citchens

If you’d told me six months ago that I’d read 64 books by midsummer, I wouldn’t have believed you. More surprising than the number itself is how much reading has reshaped the way I think, write and pay attention. Every great book seems to leave a tiny mark behind.

There are hundreds more sitting on my shelves waiting for their turn, and I already know some of them will likely become favourites.

For now, though, I’d love to know: what are you looking forward to reading next?

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We sat on canary yellow stools as we cracked open the spines of Orlando; sunbeams, insistent and playful, tickled our cheeks as if she had been waiting for us all morning; the River Wye crashed below us, moving with its own restless purpose. Behind us, the smell of roasted coffee beans rose warmly in the air; a skirt lifted and fell in the wind; sunglasses caught the light then lost it again, rising and falling with the passing clouds. Anxiety swelled at the thought of the car, held fast by the earth, flaring, then settling, replaced by the quieter, steadier understanding that, after all, everything would be alright. Latte foam settled on the bridge of my nose, lending itself rather generously to laughter, and then we were lost to it, and so the tone was set for the day.

But I must stop here. I feel, already, that I have taken on more of Virginia’s idiosyncrasies than I intended - her way of circling a moment, of letting it expand and settle all at once. They say mimicry is a form of flattery but that is not my aim. Of course, I have Woolf to thank some of my literary revelations of this past year, however I do not wish to thrust upon the reader the complexities of her writing style and the mental acuity required to absorb it. This is not to be an imitation, but an attempt at tracing the shape of a thought as it forms and softens into something like clarity.

A reflection, a realisation, an awakening, perhaps.

This, simply, is a story of two women who allowed themselves a weekend of escapism into a book. I am one of these women. The other is me, but in another body. I cannot remember a time without her, and nor do I wish to. She is an extension of my mind and my experiences - my comfort, my humour, my sister by choice, my best friend. She unknowingly, and selflessly, draws me out of the darkest shadows, casting a light so bright that I cannot help but turn towards it, embrace it, and enjoy it.

She is Harriet.

(We did, indeed, ‘guffaw’, ‘tee-hee and haw-haw’ at there being a Harriet in Orlando, however my Harriet is neither six-foot-two, nor does she have ‘long, lanky cheeks’ or a ‘face a yard long’. She has, though, on occasion been known to resemble ‘a hare startled’ - as Orlando first perceived the Archduchess Harriet - particularly, for example, when faced with entering a male-dominated, cramped pub. I am also sure, though she will undoubtedly protest, that she has, on occasion, led men to be so overcome with passion that they have to excuse themselves from the room, in a manner not entirely dissimilar to Orlando himself upon fancying the Archduchess.)

I digress.

At a time when so many other women like us, in their early thirties, spent their weekends in recovery from the night before, or in anticipation of it, or else in the unrelenting orbit of children’s commitments and errands, we found ourselves, for once, unbound. Free, it might be said.

Free, yes, but it is an interesting term. I am not certain it belongs to me, not fully, though I stand now without the ties I once knew. Sometimes I wonder if freedom is something one has to teach oneself; settle in to.

I had needed to get away, if only for one night. Life had a way of pressing in at all sides at once, with such persistence that you can do little but long for a pause, or a small, unclaimed place, where you can allow your mind to wander, and your heart to hope, and where you can believe again, if only briefly, that still, yes, life can be good.

We set out on a journey of three hours and an itinerary planned with precision – with mandatory tea, perusal or reading time allocated to each stop, sometimes all of the above, if we were lucky. The pull of desire for spontaneity was certainly there; for remember, we were free. However, the idea was swiftly quashed as organised fun is in our nature, and by the very name of it, is still fun.

The town, itself, felt like it was born for this purpose; like it had invited us years before and had been patiently waiting; ready to open its arms and welcome us into an embrace; ready to whisper its literary revelations into our ears. Winding cobbled streets; ivy covered cottages; countless bookstores; coffee spots – a recipe for tranquillity.

We moved from place to place, reading, drinking, talking, observing; for there is truly no better pastime than people-watching, and forming imagined lives for those you will never happen upon again. It was noted, for example, that the vast majority had a dog with them. As Orlando observed, both human and dog seem to move through the world in the same way – they walk, they pause, they sniff, they bark at each other. From behind the window of a café, we know not what the humans are saying, and we know not what the dogs are wishing to say, should they be given the capacity to speak.

And, if were to be in the mind of Orlando: what if the dogs could speak? Would they wonder why each and every shop was filled with paper; why the humans insist on picking up multiple stacks of paper to carry around with them; why they are giving paper in exchange for those stacks of paper; why they flick through the paper and sniff it?

Though, ‘speak they cannot’. And so, we packed up our books and our phones; we piled our plates and our mugs; paid our dues and said our thanks; and we moved on to our next destination on our itinerary of organised fun.

We took pause from reading to make superfluous purchases of literary items, channelling Orlando’s impulsivity and desire to learn; perhaps using this as justification for behaviour that might otherwise have been recognised as retail therapy.

Books upon books upon books upon books. If you have visited Hay-on-Wye, you will understand that this is no exaggeration. The bookstores take on their own personality; they don’t overpromise, but sit patiently, waiting for those who need them to find them, and those who find them to realise that they needed them.

Antique books hidden amongst new releases; genres both divided and combined; some piled high, some in regimented order; all of them passed through many hands, softened at the edges by attention. There is a kind of movement in them even when still - pages already half-opened; spines leaning as though in hushed conversation with their neighbours. The quiet insistence of things waiting to be taken up again.

And then the interruption of us. Bags swung too close to stacks, a slight misjudgement of space, and a small collapse of order that is quickly forgiven by the room itself.

I was, as I so frequently am nowadays, struck by the deep melancholic realisation that there is no realistic way that one human can read all the books they would wish to read. Aside from the fact that my bank account would not allow it, time is also an enemy.

As it stands, I have over four hundred novels on my ‘to-be-read’ list, and at times that feels overwhelming; like centuries pressing down on you; like having too many versions of yourself to hold.

At other times, it feels exciting. How wonderful is it that people are pursuing a plethora of creative pursuits, and that I should be so lucky to have my pick of what to read. I have taken to reading three different novels at once: one in print, one in audio and one in electronic form, each occupying a different moment in my day. It feels like I am holding a secret; like I’ve found a cheat code for life; like I’m spending the majority of my time in meaningful pursuits that provide me with a regular dopamine hit that 50mg of sertraline alone cannot fulfil.

And before you ask, as I know the thoughts are likely to have passed through your mind, whether consciously or not: yes, I can follow three story lines at once; no, I do not experience some characters jumping from one book to another; no, I am not rushing the experience of reading; yes, audio counts as having read a book. Isn’t it curious how whatever decision you make, someone somewhere will judge it; for what reason, I cannot fathom, for it has no bearing on their life and experience whatsoever. Let me be! Let me read!

I have strayed somewhat from Orlando but feel it important to paint the full picture of the experience. Truthfully, I did not know what I expected from Orlando. What I certainly did not expect was to find so much of my own reality reflected back at me.

Perhaps that is why I hesitate now.

Once thoughts are committed to the page, they become more difficult to ignore.

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So, what of reading a book such as Orlando with a friend such as Harriet in a place such as Hay-on-Wye? It was a recipe for serenity; the kind of book that thrives upon discussion and yet rewards private reflection. It demands engagement whilst simultaneously encouraging introspection.

We wandered the streets and spent the evening sipping cocktails with sugar-rimmed glasses and frozen fruit balanced precariously on top, and we played scrabble, as if reading an entire novel in a weekend was not mentally taxing enough, and we laughed. Our evening meal took nearly two hours to arrive, but even that could not extinguish the joy of the day.

When midnight arrived, we remained conscious and engrossed in discussion; turned toward each other in our respective beds, blankets pulled up to our chins, warm light of lamps casting shadows across; debating the meaning of the great frost and the subsequent flood; wishing Virgina to be reborn, to settle it for us, once and for all.

One felt it too fantastical, the other revelled in its symbolism. Hark! An extension of my mind, but a differing view! How engaging! How exciting! We exchanged our interpretations, frustrations and admirations. We forgot where we were; lost in the fluid, time-bending reality of Orlando; where time stretches and folds; where the boundaries between imagination and lived experience dissolve without announcement; until the murmurs of the world outside our window and clattering at our door brought us back to existence, and we fell into a deep sleep.

And I wondered - will I fall into a trance similar to Orlando and be reborn anew? Will a dark wing come to brush off the harshness of my most galling memories and ‘gild them with an incandescence’?

No such trance came; however, I did feel as if I awoke changed in some way, having experienced one of my best days of the year, and having fallen asleep with, perhaps, no galling memories present enough to require gilding. A brief, blissful reprieve.

So, we were set for a day anew, having reached the halfway point of the novel and the halfway point of our trip. Let us ponder on this Great Frost some more, for I was, unsurprisingly, the one who revelled in its symbolism, and, in all honesty, feel I have since come to persuade Harriet to my way of thinking; though it is important to appreciate that difference of opinion should be celebrated, and that we ought not seek to persuade another to think solely in our own way.

The Great Frost, where Virginia paints a world where ‘birds froze in the air and fell like stones’, and people ‘struck stark in the act of movement’, is the moment that we meet Sasha and experience Orlando falling into the ‘delights of love’.

Birds frozen mid-air; movement held as if the world had forgotten how to continue. And Sasha arrives in this precise moment. It feels, at times, as though love operates in this way: so total in its arrival that it appears to suspend everything else into stillness.

Have we not all experienced relationships so all-consuming, that it suspends reality itself? And yet, years pass and time is never frozen. Nothing is ever truly still. Time does not pause; it only changes the speed at which we perceive it. What we mistake for permanence is only intensity. And intensity, eventually, gives way. And then, almost imperceptibly, the flood.

Had time truly frozen, I would have been the same youthful, innocent, optimistic, spritely person I was before the frost. I could melt and be free to live that decade as the young woman I once was. Nothing is frozen. Not really. Even in the Frost Fair, the river is only pretending. Everything is always changing, always moving.

For Orlando, the flood follows Sasha’s betrayal; her sudden disappearance from his narrative; her immediate seeking of another love. Everything that Orlando knew to be solid and true is no more; it melts away and disappears almost as quickly as it started. When this happens, we are forced to take stock and try to identify what is real again, who you are now that you are not the person you were before. A set table and suckling kittens float down the river in front of Orlando – everything is familiar and still exists and yet is out of place. Orlando’s world no longer makes sense, because his reality does not match his expectations.

And with the flood, which inevitably has its day marked for all of us, at some point, life is irrevocably changed. From that chaos, transformation occurs; you cannot go back to the life you knew before, for you are changed by the events. You must learn to evolve.

I am changed, but I am also the same person. I am precisely as I have always been, just as Orlando remains Orlando after awakening as a woman. No single moment is sufficient to undo identity; and yet identity is never fixed either. It is shaped by memory, personality, experience, genetics - none of which belong to anyone but oneself.

Orlando once believed marriage would alter a person in some essential way; that something definitive would occur at the moment of saying I do and of placing that plain gold band upon a finger. And yet nothing, outwardly, appears to change. What, then, is marriage for, if not purely a societal pressure? What does it mean to bind oneself to another if permanence itself cannot be guaranteed?

When the book had reached the end, we were sat opposite each other in our final café. The last page turned with a kind of quiet finality that felt like accomplishment. There is a satisfaction in completion, a sense of having moved through something whole. And yet, almost immediately, something else begins: a lingering attention, as though the world of the book refuses to fully withdraw. Orlando does not end so much as remain present, pressing gently at the edges of my thought, returning in fragments, insisting on being revisited and reconsidered.

I wrote this on what should have been my wedding anniversary. Seven years ago, I made a promise, but I have since learnt that a promise I make can be broken by another; that promises made by people do not always survive in the same shape. Perhaps they were never meant to.

Whilst writing, it had struck the third hour, the time at which we said I do. And I do. I do wish to start anew; to think more clearly about what it means to be me; to move through the world without the weight of borrowed certainty. I do wish to learn and expand my mind, and to read until reading itself becomes a way of being.

This is not a wish for solitude; far from it. I have learnt that I am my best self in the presence of others; they lift me, educate me, soothe me, humour me, support me. They listen. For a long time, I absorbed the beliefs of others; I mistook caution for identity, and avoidance for safety. I assumed my introspective nature and introverted personality meant I was destined to a life of avoidance, but I am learning, slowly and imperfectly, that to live at all is to step outward.

And still, I think, there is more of myself to be read.

I am ‘a woman. Yes, but a million other things as well.’

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Nestled within a garden oasis, hidden in the heart of a bustling city, was Women’s Prize LIVE. I can think of no more fitting setting for the event. Bloomsbury is woven into the fabric of British literary history, associated with notable figures like Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens and T. S. Eliot. It was also home to the first higher education college for women in the UK. How proud would the first students in 1849 be knowing that, more than a century later, women’s voices, in all their diversity, would be publicly celebrated in that very same square?

Bedford Square Gardens themselves are surrounded by beautiful Georgian townhouses, ornate in their design and stately in their grandeur. For a moment, they invite you to suspend disbelief and imagine you have stepped straight onto the pages of a Dickens novel.

I had already devoured the shortlisted fiction books ahead of the event and was bowled over by the beautiful stories they told, the distinctive ways in which they told them and the diversity of voices they represented. If these were the books Women’s Prize had chosen for its shortlist, I knew I was in for a day of inspiration.

I toyed with the idea of writing a lengthy account of my experience that day, breaking down each talk, each book, each memorable moment. But as I started planning, I noticed several common themes emerging. I realised that I had come away with far more than a tote bag full of books and a head full of happy memories. (Although it is no exaggeration to say that the goody bag made me squeal.)

What stayed with me most was the practical wisdom shared throughout the day. Beyond the excitement and atmosphere, there was tangible advice about writing, creativity and perseverance; advice that I suspect many fellow writers would find just as valuable as I did.

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Lesson one

Show up and finish the book before worrying if it’s good enough

A common trap for new writers is believing the first draft should be polished and ready to be shared with others. As if books emerge complete the moment you write the final word. They don’t.

During the Discoveries Debut talk, Rukky Brume, author of It Comes In Waves, described it perfectly as a “first ugly draft”. The first draft is not the finished piece; it is part of a creative process.

In an Arvon workshop earlier this year led by (longlisted for the fiction prize this year), we were advised to “get the words down” when writing our first draft. More than one writer throughout the event (including Women’s Prize Fiction winner , author of The Correspondent) shared that the book they were talking about that day had not even been intended for publication when it was first written.

The message was consistent: don’t line edit as you go, don’t second guess the market, don’t stress over the specifics. Just write the book you want to write and write for the love of writing. The rest comes later.

A natural result of that approach is often a moment where something shifts—where a light flicks on and you think: this might actually go somewhere.

As Lorna Elcock, author of The Windhover, put it during the Discoveries Debut talk, when finishing felt impossible, “my only option was I just kept turning up.”

Lesson two

Don’t fear unconventional structure and narrative choices

During the Discoveries Debut talk, and having read all the shortlisted fiction books, I was struck by how distinct each one was. That must sound like an obvious observation – of course every author brings a unique perspective – but it went beyond that. These were deliberate structural and narrative choices that the writers committed to, and which served their stories perfectly.

For example, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, is an epistolary novel, told entirely through a collection of letters, emails, and notes. I was initially hesitant about this, unsure how it would give a complete sense of the world from a reader’s perspective. What I found instead was a rich, intimate character study, with information revealed at a carefully controlled, meaningful pace. It was the perfect format for a protagonist whose life has been shaped by the letters she has written and received.

A standout moment from the Discoveries Debut was the reading from Over, by Ruth Rosengarten, who chose to write in sestudes: 62-word fragments in non-chronological order. As a reader, it means you get to piece together the information as you read it to assemble meaning as you go. I’m looking forward to reading this in full, as I’m hoping it will make me feel a little bit like a literary detective.

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Both Rosengarten and Rozie Kelly, author of Kingfisher, chose not to name their protagonists. Kelly felt it was “too concrete”. This decision shifts attention toward internal experience and action, making the protagonist feel more universal and allowing us as readers to occupy their perspective more easily.

I really felt this when I read Kingfisher. You can feel the character’s yearning, trauma, and struggle with identity. It made me wonder whether naming him (something ordinary, like Bob) would have distanced me from those feelings.

Evidently none of these formats were a barrier to publication. These novels were taken on by agents and publishers and now sit on stages like Women’s Prize LIVE, shared with readers in that same spirit of experimentation. Form should serve the story. If it does, trust it.

Lesson three

Difficult characters are often the most compelling

I attended the “Difficult Women: Why Society Still Demonises Women” panel, which explored themes of female agency and complexity in literature.

They discussed how in fiction, women have often been portrayed in ways that turn their complexity into something threatening or “difficult,” particularly when they step outside expected roles. Traits like ambition, anger, sexual desire, or emotional intensity are more likely to be judged negatively in female characters than in male ones, where the same qualities are often accepted as depth or drive.

Historically, this has meant that these “difficult women” have been punished, contained or corrected in books – a demand for justification for their behaviour. As I heard across several talks during the event, and particularly from Kathryn Stockett when talking about her new novel The Calamity Club, fiction nowadays is increasingly allowing female characters to be contradictory and flawed without forcing them into redemption or punishment arcs.

Often, it is the characters who are typically seen as “difficult” and unlikeable, who are actually the most compelling. Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear was mentioned several times during the day, as its protagonist divides opinion and the book has been criticised online by some because they did not like the main character. I read Yesteryear myself and found I disliked the protagonist - but was completely absorbed by her. There was something compelling about staying inside a perspective so different from my own. I wanted the novel to continue simply so I could remain in her mind a little longer.

The takeaway for me here is to make sure I write female characters in full complexity without softening or justifying them for likability. We should be able to trust readers to engage with that complexity.

Lesson four

Readers value emotional truth over literary cleverness

I had booked in a one-to-one with on ‘Writing and Building a Creative Career’. In just 15 minutes, she offered a remarkable amount of insight while still making it feel like a genuine, welcoming conversation rather than a lecture.

One thing she asked me was ‘Why you, why this story?’. It wasn’t something I had actively thought about before, but I had an immediate answer. I knew why I had started writing this particular story. Whilst it’s not autofiction, it emerged from a significant life shift that made me question a number of things. That uncertainty formed a series of “what ifs,” which eventually grew into over 100,000 words of speculative fiction.

That emphasis on emotional grounding was echoed later in the day during the shortlist readings, particularly The Mercy Step by and Mother Mary Comes to Me by . One is autofiction, the other memoir, but in both cases the emotion in the reading was immediate and direct. As a listener, you felt drawn into something intimate, because the author was speaking from a place of lived experience rather than construction.

This lesson’s takeaway is that readers respond first to emotional truth, not technical sophistication. That is worth remembering not just in the writing itself, but in how you position your work when you talk about it.

Lesson five

Think beyond the novel: learn to communicate your concept and build a writing career

A recurring thread throughout my conversation with Kate Mildenhall was that writing a novel is only part of the work. Just as important is learning how to articulate what you are doing and why it matters. That begins with the basics: being able to pitch your idea clearly, write a strong query letter, and understand how to position your work through comparisons that genuinely reflect its tone and readership.

It also extends beyond the manuscript itself. In an increasingly crowded literary landscape, an author’s presence outside the book matters, whether that is through a thoughtful online presence, or an awareness of how your work sits across genres and forms. As an author you don’t have to be confined to a single category, and there is value in thinking flexibly about where your writing might belong.

Underlying all of this is discipline. Protect your time, stay consistent, and continue to generate new ideas - this is what will sustain a writing life beyond a single project. The book you are writing now shouldn’t be the end point of your thinking, but part of a longer trajectory of work.

I hope you are able to get something from those five key lessons that is helpful to you. I certainly did. If you are ever considering attending a Women’s Prize LIVE, I would urge you to go.

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I was travelling to the Women’s Prize Live, and truthfully, I just knew I needed to be there the moment I saw tickets available. You hear about people getting a calling, well this was my literary calling; an invitation to do something that was just for me and my interests. And that pull, that desire – it miraculously wiped away any anxiety I was expecting I would feel.

I stood at the platform remembering the stomach churning train journeys of a decade ago, where I forced one foot in front of the other to find a seat, closed my eyes once I sat down in an attempt to dissociate from my body, and felt the walls of the carriage press in on me. I was overcome with the crushing, indisputable feeling that I needed to escape, but couldn’t. I was trapped. Was that a shooting pain up my arm? Right on cue, a sudden drop in my stomach: my breakfast trying to escape by any means; sweaty palms, heart racing, vision blurring.

Get out, get out, get out. If you can’t get out, then everything needs to get out of you.

Then I would step off the train at Euston and… no immediate requirement for a toilet. No heart attack. This repeated daily for a year, and it was like every day I forgot, and so every day I lived through it all again. Grief does bizarre things to the mind and body.

And so, this week I could fully appreciate how far I have come, because I did not feel the need to shit myself. What a bar to set, hey? But here we are.

When I stepped off that train in London earlier this week, the only overwhelming feeling this time was of freedom. If I can do this, what else can I do? Surely the world is my oyster.

It also struck me how much of my life I’ve spent quietly living through things and moving on without ever really talking about them.

And so here we are. This is my first Substack post.

I have experienced some of the most joyous moments and some of the darkest, and throughout it all I have always remained quiet. “Have more than you show, speak less than you know” is a Shakespeare quote from King Lear that I always stood by. In many ways, I still do. I am an introverted book girl, after all. But I think I leaned into that too much; let it settle over me, like a comforting blanket. I sat back, watched everyone else experience their joy and their grief, and spoke minimally of mine. But speaking less does not mean I have less to say.

Then, a Big Life Event happened (maybe as a result of me just doing the aforementioned ‘sitting back’, though my therapist would likely challenge that thought) and I didn’t want to stay quiet anymore.

I wanted to shout about the injustice I was feeling. I wanted to scream about the emotions I’ve been gripping tightly on to for decades. I wanted to live with abandon; laugh without anxiety; experience life without caution. I wanted to feel like a woman.

But that’s all quite a big jump, so what I did instead was write a book.

And I screamed on to the page.

And then slowly I opened myself up, page by page, to the people around me and to those who I barely knew, and I discovered that life can be good despite all the bad.