The Arvon Foundation provides courses for aspiring writers at four centres in Devon, Shropshire, Yorkshire and Inverness-shire, with resident centre managers and visiting tutors who are professional writers in the relevant area for the course – novels, poetry, drama, film, even comics and graphic novels. Diana and I tried to book on a course in Scotland, but it was full instantly. It was half term week so we reckoned they were all teachers. We found another relevant-looking course, at Totleigh Barton, Devon, called “Work in Progress – or work in distress”. This was not fully booked so we signed up.

The week eventually turned out to fit in well with our planned travel to the South West and gave us a short trip along the Atlantic Highway (or A39, more prosaically) from Wadebridge. The roads get smaller and smaller as you approach Totleigh Barton, until you turn off a single track road onto a single track track, albeit a concrete one, down to the former farm and manor house. The rigid edges of the track are in most places well above the surrounding fields, so if there is something coming the other way, there is no going off the track to get past each other, unless one of you is a tractor, and even then it might be tricky.

On the first evening we all met in a yurt in the garden: Adam, Christine, Diana, Garlen, Hilary, Jane, Kevin, Linda, Nina, Penny, Peter, Roger, Sandra, Sue, Tim, (there should have been 16, but one didn’t arrive) plus tutors Monique Roffey and Andrew Miller and centre managers Olly and Clare. It was a good mixture of individuals of varying ages and genders. I even found a fellow graphic novel reader and a science fiction writer.

The pattern of the days was a workshop in the morning led by one of the tutors and half-hour individual tutorials in the afternoon. This meant two workshops from each of Monique and Andrew, and everyone getting half an hour with each of them. This is apparently the tried and trusted Arvon format. In the evenings there were readings, Tuesday by the tutors, Wednesday by a guest, Christopher Wakling, and Thursday and Friday by ourselves. There was a rota for cooking dinner and washing up. In between there was time to talk – and what a pleasure to have writers to talk to! – write, walk, even trot up the track to find a mobile phone signal from higher ground.

I found it extremely enjoyable and very useful. I haven’t been back to my novel since the course. I finished the first draft just before going on it and am currently obeying Monique’s instruction to leave it alone for six weeks. But I have written a short story since then, using some of the things I learned from Andrew and Monique, particularly ‘attention’ and ‘slowing down’. I ended up writing something quite unlike anything I have done before. Let’s see how the Woking Writers Circle reacts to it in a week or so.

Normally in my blog I witter on about whatever it happens to be in a vaguely amusing way, putting in jokes (but generally too few of them) and adjectives and adverbs (but generally too many of them) and keeping it light and frothy. This time it would seem presumptuous, since everyone else there was also a writer, and a damn fine one at that. So I am going to stop there, but invite everyone else on the course to add a paragraph with their thoughts and impressions, now that we’ve had a few weeks to get over the initial euphoria. Over to you, people. Click on the bubble up top, or where it says “Leave a reply’ below.