The New Writers' Scheme

The kind man in the print shop told me that he was sure that it was a winning dissertation. I sheepishly told him that it was a partial novel and walked away with flushed cheeks at having told a stranger that at all and feeling happy that a random young man had a good feeling about it. This was in spite of my rational self telling me that it was a load of old tosh and that he probably said that to all the girls (and boys!).

Seeing my partial in double-spaced one page layout was the strangest thing. I've been working on it for what seems like forever in single-spaced format. When I print it off - which is rare - I tend to shrink it and cram it onto as few pages as possible so as not to drain my titchy printer cartridge.

Somehow seeing the title page and a big fat wad of double-space lines made it seem like a proper novel. It looked professional. Previously I had slogged away thinking of it as 'The Book' but it was all a bit unreal. With a mixture of anxiety and excitement I stuffed it into the postbox and said a prayer.