I spoke to author Jen Alexander in early August; we were talking about writing groups, the pros and cons of running them and the magic that can happen when a group of people gather to write in the same room. Jen put it beautifully when she said ‘As soon as people sit down around the table to write you have a community.‘

This idea of mine, to see if a group of people can write something as sustained and complex as a novel, what that might look like as a process, what it might mean to the people who write it, and the communities they belong to, was an itch I needed to scratch.

Funding from the AHRC has made it possible, with a place on Falmouth University’s 3D3 programme. Now I feel like the living embodiment of the warning ‘be careful what you wish for,’ but in a good way.

I have the luxury of three funded years in which to test my notions of a community of writers, readers and researchers collaborating on a work of long fiction; writers who are not professional, not published, but passionate about creative writing as something they love in the way other people love sport or art or music; activities that bring people into contact with each other to make something and, in the making, make more than just the fiction; make connections, make friends, make new images of the place – the community – they share.

On 22 September 2018, after some planning and publicity, I welcomed the first participants to an echoey community hall, the Ord-Statter Pavilion in Mylor Bridge on the south Cornwall coast. It was a grey Saturday. Outside the rain came down in sheets; inside we clustered in the large hall and shared ideas about what it takes to write a novel: characters that compel, settings that are authentic, powerful descriptive language, strong narrative, a plot that drives forward with a clear, consistent voice. We hung our ideas on a line of bunting.

We asked what a novel can be in the 21st century: print, online, graphic, digital, We looked at examples of novels written by more than one person. Could we see the join?

Then we started to write together, 8 voices woven into one through the form of an alpha poem. I thank Fiona Hamilton and the Orchard Foundation for leading me to John Hegley’s poem What a Poem’s Not, as our model.

This is What a Novel’s Not, by Annie, Barbara, Carole, Caroline, Isabel, Jane, Joanna and Kim.

A novel is not an ambulance driver

But it might still save your life

A novel is not a bear

But sometimes it can give you a hug

A novel is not a clue

But it might help you on its way

A novel is not a dam

But it can contain the deepest reservoir of human experience

A novel is not exhausting

But it can feel like it!

A novel is not a ferryboat

but it may take you across some turbulent waters

A novel is not always ground breaking

It can simply hold you

A novel is not a haunting

But it may spook your mind

A novel is not an ironing board

But it can slowly unfold

A novel is not a judicial review

But it still might have a sense of fair play

A novel is not a knot

But it can get me all tangled up

A novel is not always about love

But love is always there

A novel is not a miracle

But finishing a novel might feel like one

A novel is not a negative experience

But can be sometimes

A novel is not an orange

but it can sometimes get very juicy

A novel is not pretentious

It can draw you in like a fish

A novel is not a quiz

But it may question your beliefs

A novel is not a river

But it can flow in twists and turns

A novel is not a swing in the park

But it might still push you to and fro

A novel is not a triangle

But it can be about love

A novel is not an umbrella

But it could shade you from the sun and the rain

A novel is not a vandal

Though it can wreak havoc

A novel is not a waste of time

But an experience

A novel is not always Xanadu

But it can be for some people

A novel is not a yawn

It shouldn’t send you to sleep

A novel is not a zoo

But it may contain some strange creatures.

We have started to be joined up writers.