LUCY COLEMAN

It’s been an emotional month. With a close family member in ICU for over two weeks and still critical, our hearts have been breaking. In the middle of this my other half and I had stomach flu and then structural edits arrived on my desk. The bug cut our hospital vigil short, so we text and support the ‘supporters’ by phone.

Aside from passing on messages to the wider family, my way of coping is to write. I channelled all that emotional turmoil into my edits and then into my current work in progress. All we can do is pray for a good outcome and when you can’t physically be there to help, it’s important to keep busy.

Writing for me is escapism. But I don’t avoid the harsher side of life and most of my novels reflect the mixed bag fate dishes out. What I’ve learnt this month is that there is a lot of kindness and love in this world, and often it comes from strangers – nurses and doctors who are there when you most need them. It’s truly humbling and a remind of how precious life is.

CLAIRE DYER

And so I’ve been faced with something that can bring a chill to any author’s heart – the rewrite. I have written a novel. It has been seen by quite a few people and one of these people has suggested that it would be stronger, better, more commercial were I to … It’s quite a long list!

But rather than recoil, I find myself embracing the challenge. They’re right. The book will be stronger, better, more commercial if I make the suggested changes. The only problem is, can I? Not as in may I, or do I want to, but am I able to? It seems a huge task. Six strands need editing, all the possible knock-on effects of these edits need to be spotted to ensure consistency; I have to match the tone, voice, spirit of the original even though time has passed and other things have crowded into my mind.

And so I’m going in. Will let you know how I get on!

STOP PRESS: some weeks have passed and I think I’m done. The six strands have been buffed, honed, added to, had stuff deleted from and I’m exhausted. I’ve re-read the book what seems like a gazillion times. I’ve loved it and I’ve hated it. I’ve wept from despair, and also because the story has come from somewhere deep within where a lot of sadness is. It is a different beast from the novel I started two years ago and I too am altered. I hope we’ve both changed for the better, but only time will tell. I have certainly valued the experience in a bizarre sort of way. However, now it has to go off into the world and we all know what that means …!

JACKIE BALDWIN

There have been many highs in this writing year but this month has not been amongst them. I discovered that my lovely Golden Retriever, Poppy, who has just turned six, is terminally ill and not expected to be with us long. A real blow to us all. As a result, I don’t have much in the way of news as I have been staying close to home.

I have been tying myself into knots over the plot in my third book and may well have to abandon it completely and start again. I’ve been thinking about it so hard I might have broken my brain. This must be what writer’s block feels like, a creeping paralysis of creative thought. I have to believe that it will pass and the pieces will gradually fall into place.

I hope that by this time next month I will be writing up a storm again!

ANGELA PETCH

The mountainside is a picture of fiery golds and rich reds as we start to pack up our Italian house for winter. We might return for New Year, which is celebrated in Italy with delicious feasts. Maurice and I enjoyed a much-needed five-day break last week in the Abruzzo region, walking up the majestic Gran Sasso, visiting devastated hill-top towns in this earthquake area.  I have a fascination for ruins and they will feature in my third Tuscan novel, very much in the planning and research stages. While we were away, no writing was done. And that is good, but my mind was still absorbing sights, sounds and new ideas.

Mavis and Dot is going on a blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources in mid-November, so I’ve been busy with interviews and making the final decision about the cover. I’m really pleased with it and I used a professional designer this time. Watch this space.