The Novel Studio’s strapline is ‘We spot the talent, you develop your potential’ — which is pretty accurate in my experience. Much credit must be given in retrospect to Alison Burns, who was the course director. She selected a cohort of very capable writers with very differing but complementary styles and interests . Moreover, the feedback sessions were intense and lively \u2013 people regularly ran out of time to give verbal comments and we all left the sessions with sheaves of invaluable notes that we’d scribbled on each other’s manuscripts.<\/p>\n As mentioned in previous blog posts, I\u2019ve been part of a group who have met up every month with Emily Pedder, who’s now in charge of the shorter writing courses at City, to continue workshopping extracts from each others\u2019 novels-in-progress.<\/p>\n People have left and rejoined the group \u2013 sometimes for practical reasons like having a baby or workload from taking other courses and also, in a couple of cases, because their writing has been picked up by agents or publishers who\u2019ve set exacting deadlines. Jennifer Gray\u2019s children\u2019s books have been very successful \u2013 with the Guinea Pigs series for Quercus <\/a>and Atticus Claw<\/a> for Faber and Faber. I spotted that she had a session for the books at the Hay Festival earlier this summer and would liked to have gone along. I’ll have to catch up when I next meet Jennifer for a drink.<\/p>\n Partly because we\u2019ve formed a group that\u2019s been supportive and encouraging of each others\u2019 efforts, I\u2019ve hoped that as many of us as possible will go on to achieve success with our novels and build writing careers. There are certainly some excellent novels in the works and nearing completion \u2013 and they\u2019re all the better for having received detailed feedback from other members of the group.<\/p>\n Imho all the other students on that course were very capable of producing novels that would be an asset to the shelves of any Waterstones (as have been plenty of other writers I’ve met on the MA course and other courses at the Open University and\u00a0Lancaster University). However, after observing from the fringes of the publishing industry, it’s sobering to learn that just because a novel is very good there’s no guarantee that it will be published, let alone be a success. Like other creative industries, as far as predicting what’s going to be a big success in the market then, in William Goldman’s words, ‘nobody knows anything’.<\/p>\n I’ve been at question and answer sessions where agents have been asked ‘Can you tell me what to write about from a commercial perspective so I don’t spend three years writing a novel no-one wants to publish or read?’ The question almost answers itself — putting in those three years shows belief in both your idea and yourself as an author — and your writing ought to improve along the way too. \u00a0And that time and effort is put in without any guarantee of a reward — if you’re lucky enough to get published the chances are you’re not going to be able to live comfortably off the proceeds, at least straight away.<\/p>\n Maybe the second most sobering thing to learn from meeting writers is that it’s a hell of a lot of hard work for a small chance of a reward that is, in all likelihood, to be rather modest. Calculate all the time required to write, edit, revise and polish a novel begun on a creative writing course and divide it by the reported revenue generated by a debut novel and it’s very likely to come out well under the minimum wage (and, for most people, the time is effectively overtime, because it’s fitted around work, family or other responsibilities). However, the figures for average earnings are an example of the infamous long-tail — a small number of \u00a0writers have very healthy incomes, whereas there’s a large number of published writers who aren’t so fortunate.<\/p>\n Even to make it through an intense course like the City course, it was clear that everyone loved writing with a passion. But I can understand why some very talented writers might have decided it’s not the right time in their lives to make the enormous commitment to complete that novel.<\/p>\n Many of the group \u2013 and other writers I\u2019ve met in other ways \u2013 are now at a point where their work stands on a boundary. It’s poised to transform from an endeavour that\u2019s been personal, shared privately with friends, and becoming a commercial proposition, something to which rights can be sold to agents and publishers. \u00a0The wheels of the literary industry can turn very slowly, with decisions taking an agonisingly long time which means that I often hear hints of promising news in the pipeline but is subject to confidences which mean it can’t be mentioned publicly, let alone on a blog.<\/p>\n However, last week we heard some great news from an ex-City student that can be publicly shared. The collective thrill of receiving the news shows that despite all the above, when someone you know is recognised and gets a deserved break the feeling is almost euphoric and makes all the effort seem very worthwhile. Rick Kellum announced that he\u2019d signed as a client of Juliet Mushens at The Agency Group<\/a>. Rick, one of our three North Americans, has been working hard on his fantasy novel since we finished the City course \u2013 he was posting up his word count daily on Facebook at certain stages.<\/p>\n As well as putting in\u00a0the hours, Rick is a gripping and imaginative writer. He was also one of the students on the course who was most open with his feedback on the course \u2013 no-one could nail a lazy adverb more quickly. His scrutiny and attention to detail certainly helped me so I\u2019m particularly pleased about the news.<\/p>\n Rick is also an excellent and entertaining reader of his writing. I imagine he\u2019d go down a storm at author events — which won’t harm his chances of developing a successful writing career. I\u2019ve also met his agent, Juliet, on a couple of occasions and she leaves the impression that she’s very ambitious and will work hard to get the best for her clients. Her Twitter feed<\/a> is both entertaining and very informative (with regular #askagent sessions held, often on Sunday evenings). I look forward to hearing further good news from both of them.<\/p>\n For anyone wondering why this blog\u2019s been a little more quiet than usual, it\u2019s because I\u2019ve been on holiday and, for the first time in a while, I spent a decent amount of time in the home country of Kim, one of my novel\u2019s principal characters. Some photos of Germany and Berlin may follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m able to mention a bit of news about a friend which has the moral that talent combined with self-belief and hard-work eventually gets its reward. A major advantage of taking creative writing courses, if not the principal benefit, is becoming part of a group of like-minded writers in a similar position. If the course … <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Aylas-Cafe-Exmouth-Market-270310.jpg\")
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