Jennifer Pittam

One thing that makes life worthwhile, so they tell us, is 'facing a challenge'.  From earliest childhood, if we are lucky, we learn from the right kind of challenge. I started early with a game of the same name, on my first day at school. My primary school, Meadow Lane, was a rough one, frankly, in which the pupils were drawn from the families of dockers or soldiers stationed at the local depot. Meadow Lane Primary School We were not, most emphatically not, allowed to stay inside at break no matter the weather.  The three-sided shelter in the yard was the only concession to our comfort.  The shelter had a narrow wooden bench around the inside. To play The Challenge game needed most of the school, and we sat on the bench, side-by-side, each shoving the person to the left, whilst making a sound like an air-raid siren.  Kids knew the sound of the air-raid siren when I was little because they were still tested regularly every week, some 14 years after the bombs...

So it's evening in London after a terrible, terrible day. This morning during the rush hour, a helicopter crashed into a crane, killing the crew and then falling into the street where it injured a number of pedestrians. As horrific accidents go, it wasn't the worst, except of course for the poor family of the crew. For Londoners like me, it brought back the full horror of the London bombings in 2007, although this accident was exactly that - a tragic accident. A Terrible Day in London In spite of the carnage, I'm in the Bear pub with a few writer pals from our writing class in the City Lit. We'd arranged to meet and we thought, 'what will we do if we cancel - just sit at home moping'. Fear's like that - it causes you either to have ridiculous, exaggerated ideas of 'what could happen' or to freeze, and start skulking about like a hibernating bear trying for entry in the Guinness Book of Records. Heroes & Villains, since 1714 The Bear's a great...

So we've reached the end of the Olympic Games, and I'm sitting in Spitalfields Market to watch the closing ceremony. We've all been affected by having the Games in dear old London. For one thing, 70,000 of us have been volunteers, people of all ages and backgrounds who gave freely, cheerfully and with great common sense (that least common of gifts).  I've been enchanted by the 'ribbon of gold' wild flower park, which snakes through the Lee Valley, where I was born. We hope it will leave a lasting legacy. Time will tell whether the Olympic Stadium will do for the East End what Docklands did for the Port of London, i.e. push out the local people and replace them with Merchant Bankers. Please the Good Lord that in ten years' time the East End of London hasn't reverted to some sort of graveyard for the Olympic legacy that never was. The secret behind the Games was the preparation - I couldn't help noticing. It applied to the organisers, the volunteers, t...

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...

Been working every hour of the day on setting this week. I'm fascinated by the way mood in a story can be implied by the setting - that includes the season, the weather, the wildlife, the antics of the general public. As a Londoner born and bred, I love to be out and about in my beautiful, diverse city. It's like a character itself, with its many moods and changes. Today, on Good Friday, Trafalgar Square was sombre Passion of the Christ, Trafalgar Square and grey, as thousands gathered around Nelson's Column to watch a bloody but beautifully acted Passion of the Christ. It was a great moment to make notes for the lowest scenes in my current novel - the haunting, the despair, the bits where Thomas can see no way out. It seems barely a couple of weeks, in fact it is barely a couple of weeks, since the same square was bright and full of laughter for Chinese New Year. On that occasion, too, I took my notebook and tried  to etch the details on my Chines New Year Ce...