h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am in the middle of writing a story. It's provisionally called 'Dreaming in Stone' and it might, conceivably, become a novel.

I blame this on the University of Sussex. All right, I've been writing stories, on and off, for 24 years at least. But most of them are short; few exceed 3,000 words. I followed a couple of open access courses at the University of Sussex and I thoroughly enjoyed them. So I decided to enrol for the Creative Writing Programme, which is supposed to run over two years, comprising one morning session per week and a couple of Saturday workshops. This has the odd consequence that, for the first time for forty years, I am an official student!

In the second term of this course, we met a new tutor, Susannah Waters, who is a published novelist. She proved enthusiastic and ready to offer helpful feedback. I came up with an idea for a story which follows an English couple and their teenage son, who go and live in France, with the intention of doing up an old house and its barns, to serve as bead and breakfast accommodation. They run out of money.

I had a vague idea, when I started, of where my story was heading but, as I worked, it changed. I have drawn up a seven-point plot, but the process of writing has been more organic than planned. I prune it and it grows, I graft pieces on and it grows a bit more. Then the first year of my course ended and we all set off for our summer break. The group has proved supportive. We read and comment on each other's writing and do what Susannah calls 'hot seating': interviewing each other's characters.

However, I've now got stuck and I'm losing heart. Not interest - I still love writing - but there are those little voices in my head saying 'this is a waste of time, and 'this is never going to be any good'. I want to get back to my story, but there are lots of other things to do. I need encouragement.

Don't you dare give up We all hit the buffers sometimes, but is sounds as if your story is taking control, and from what I had heard other authors say that is when a book becomes good, when the characters and circumstances take over.

It was strange reading that because I had a friend who did just that, though I don't hear from her now possibly because I was not a potential customer for her B & B!

Please continue, you have awakened my curiosity.

Websailor

Thanks Websailor.

I don't know where your friend has her b&b. I suspect that, if you did what my characters are trying to do - set up a b&b in rural France - it would be difficult to make enough money to recover the costs of renovation work.

There do seem to be a lot of people trying it... I guess if you've got some savings/pension, you only need a little money.

I went to the most extraordinary one in Montreuil once (N France, near Calais).

What seemed to be two sisters or perhaps a group of English friends had brought a very old - 17C or maybe even earlier - coaching inn. A magnificent thing with a full size bit for your coach to pull into, the original windows...

One of the sisters was the waiter, the other ran the hotel, and I think perhaps a husband in the kitchen.

It had been done up very Laura Ashley - lots of flowers everywhere and must have cost a fortune in maintenance.

They weren't exactly packed, but it was very early in the season, so who knows whether it was a going concern?

Good luck with the writing - can never get beyond short stories/poems myself...

sprout

Thanks, sprout.

I've been to some attractive b&bs in France. But we found one odd one, where the proprietor was running a flying club, and the b&b was just an afterthought.

I think it's difficult to know what you're buying in France, because they don't do full surveys. You buy this old place and discover subsidence, a leaking roof, the need for a new septic tank...

I'm more of a poet than a fiction writer myself. And I remember your 'Not Enough Time for a Second Chance'