Jennifer Pittam

So, day 3 of my impromptu writing workshop.  Still Diamond Jubilee weekend, so I gravitate to Buckingham Palace, and follow a detachment of gorgeous police horses. Once more, there are punters who camped out all night, desperate to reserve a place for the concert this evening. For me, I'm stalking the final third of my Thomas Tarling novel, and I lap up the atmosphere, which is a bit akin to that of the fairground. The rain has been torrential in the night, the St John Ambulance work through the crowd dispensing first aid and hot drinks. Me, I'm surviving on porridge - I've discovered what the Scots have known for centuries; it's nourishing it's cheap  it's great for those on a diet. My first task is to list the final scenes by bullet point, and then to mirror the first day's work by jotting twenty 'last lines'. I can't believe I never thought of this 'twenty first lines, twenty last lines' idea before. In fact, I didn't think it up, ...

Today I got down to the Tower of London at dawn, to work on deepening the 'middle' episodes, the heart and backbone of my novel. Already at that hour preparations were in hand for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, with police officers on duty at the Tower of London and the first sight-seers surveying the scene. It takes dedication to 'get down to it' that early, but of course, it's what the experienced royal-watchers do, on every occasion - be there, with your mac, your flask of tea and your flags. So my goal today was to work on the dramatic - the backstabbing, the weeping, the scintillating dialogue - well, that's how every writer hopes their work will turn out! As the first of the crowds settled themselves, and bear in mind this was 6.30 hrs, for a Pageant due to being at 14.00 hrs, I sat on a wall with my coffee and asked myself a series of questions: 1) Have I added complications for poor Thomas? 2) Is he changing? Is he affected by the events that have land...

So, four days' creativity, no interruptions! Must get the plot for my 19th century novel down in scene-by-scene form. Britain is in the grip of a once-in-a-lifetime public holiday to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of HM the Queen; ideal opportunity for writers like me to shake off the cobwebs and get out on the streets. Began with bed & breakfast in the seaside town of Margate. Ye Gods, Margate Old Town serves the largest breakfasts in the world. Hugely full but content, I sit down at my window overlooking the bay, to focus on my story's timeline. It's become a monster, like one of those dogs that has to have counselling because it's become pack leader in charge of the human family. I tell it to sit, nicely, and divide it into the classic three parts: beginning, middle and end. Traditional model? Boring? Hope not. We expect to know where a novel begins.  I come up with 20 first lines, each supposed to set the scene for my hero's knife-edge journey...