My own journey into serious writing began by accident.
In March 2014, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 dominated the news. The detail that lodged in my mind was the satellite “pings” showing the plane had continued flying for over seven hours after vanishing from radar. I couldn’t stop thinking about those long hours. What happened on board? How would two hundred people behave if they knew they were flying toward certain death? Would they pray? Panic? Revolt? Nothing added up. And then it struck me. What if everyone on that plane conspired to disappear? But how could that be? How would a group of complete strangers who never set eyes on each other, let alone the pilots and crew, get organised for such a logistical feat?
Some ideas are like pregnancies. They implant themselves quietly, grow steadily, and eventually demand to be born. This one took root. I pored over maps, calculated flight paths, imagined motives, conspirators, landing sites. As the years went by, the story grew and developed a life of its own. It had to be born.
But how? How does one bring together a story with so many moving parts, spread across continents and spanning several decades. A story that is a fast-paced thriller yet at the same time explores the psychological and philosophical implications of seeking a new life. Like any other artform, writing is a skill that needs to be learned. Beyond a stack of notebooks filled with chaotic scribbles and a lifetime of reading, I had no training. Writing has rules, techniques and conventions that must be respected.
So, I researched courses. There were creative writing MAs, mentoring schemes, and enough “how-to” books to fill a small library. Faber stood out The name carried weight. After all, they’ve been publishing books since 1929, and their courses seemed selective in a way that suggested seriousness rather than snobbery. Also, the tutors looked like people who actually knew what they were doing. At that time all Faber courses were devised and delivered by Professional Writing Academy.
I began with the Beginner’s Fiction course with Helen Shipman in the summer of 2021. It was revelatory. Sessions on point of view, character, setting, time, and structure didn’t just teach me technique; they helped me begin shaping the story that had been haunting me for years. Characters stepped out of the fog. Plot points clicked into place. And I discovered something dangerous: I was addicted.
When the course ended, I needed more. So, I applied for Faber and Professional Writing Academy’s flagship Write a Novel programme. For nine months, under the wise and gently irreverent guidance of Peter Benson, our small group learned to trust our instincts, meet our word counts, and critique each other with honesty and kindness.
During those months, the heart of my novel emerged. I realised the story wasn’t about a disappearing plane. It was about the people on it. That changed everything. The book gained depth, humanity, and purpose.
When the course ended, none of us wanted to say goodbye. So, we didn’t. Four years later, a handful of us still meet monthly on Zoom, still sharing pages, still cheering each other on.
But my novel wasn’t finished. So, I joined the Finish Your Draft course. This one was about discipline: 7,500 new words every month, plus detailed critiques for everyone else. The camaraderie kept us going. Three years later, that group also still meets monthly. And by the end of the course, in summer 2023, I finally had a complete first draft.
Then came the turning point. In September 2023, the manuscript won the Wilbur & Niso Smith New Voices Award for Adventure Writing. The prize included a year of professional editing, an experience that taught me, among other things, that adverbs are the work of the devil.
By 2024, I was ready to pitch to agents. Nothing can prepare the debut novelist for the avalanche of rejection and ghosting that follows. But persistence does eventually prevail.
In May this year, almost precisely five years after first putting pen to paper, or more accurately, fingers to keyboard, my novel, Nothing Left to Lose, was published in the UK by The Book Guild. So far, it has had rave reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads and seems to be selling well both in paperback and e-book formats.
The really important thing however is that I’m two thirds into writing my next one. The writing bug appears to be an incurable one.
Get your novel across the finish line
Explore our Write a Novel in Five Acts course or Finish a Draft in a Year: Group Mentoring programme and discover how to achieve your writing goals.
