WE3WRITERS

We three writers (@We3writers) meet on Skype every two weeks to read each other’s fiction, give feedback and practical comments. I can’t begin to describe what an amazing support that is,

especially in these isolated times.

Yesterday my writing buddies were responding to my last but one chapter and they have given me a massive boost. Honestly I was embarrassed to be grinning so much as I heard them respond to my characters with cries of ‘yessss!’ and punches to the air. Of course they also had changes to suggest, including about the ending which has not yet fully taken shape. Katherine wants my star-crossed lovers to find each other again. Hmmm. Should I let them? Daniela on the other hand seems to enjoy the ambiguity which comes from layer upon different layer of family story. I think she might prefer an unresolved ending. We’ll see.

I also got huge enjoyment from their latest chapters. Daniela’s mysterious character is emerging full flavour now from her extraordinary past in an intriguing ‘bedtime story for grown-ups’. Katherine’s protagonist is confronting the dilemmas we all face as we leave youth behind; how to stay true to ourselves, our deepest passions, to be fully alive – while also having a nice life, children, safety.

They want me to write my last chapters before we meet again. But as soon as I have ‘finished’ I will be going back to the beginning and working through the whole thing again. This summer of 2020 is not the time to rush, with a gazillion other authors swamping the desks of agents and publishers with their lockdown creations. Besides, I have to get to grips with my demons – dates and numbers – and check that I have got my characters’ birth dates right so that I don’t have people dying before their time or too young to be the parents of their children. Thank god I am not in charge of the economy – good luck to you Rishi!

I also need to turn on my melodrama radar and make sure that my characters are behaving as most of us do. Because all families have secrets. Whether we know it or not, we quietly live with them day to day. These are the invisible threads that pull us here and there, we’re not altogether sure why.

Some are revealed in time – and then denied. My favourite unsourced statistic is that for a third of us, the man we think of as ‘dad’ is actually not our biological father. That’s a secret often kept

hidden. But great fun to play with in a novel.