How To Get £10,000 To Write A Novel

On Monday the 21st of December 2020 at 13:15 in the afternoon, just a few days before Christmas and in the midst of a pandemic, an official looking email from the Arts Council of England (ACE) finally arrived. It was the result of my application to one of their funding programmes; I’d been expecting it for weeks. Here is the opening paragraph:

Hi,

Thank you for your recent application to Round 8 of the Developing

Your Creative Practice (DYCP) programme. I am writing to let you know that

your application has been successful and we will be offering you a grant.

Congratulations!

Even today, well over a year later, the sheer delight from reading their rather bland offer letter hasn’t gone entirely. If euphoria can last only so long then the warm inner glow stayed for months and months to come. Nor will I ever forget staring at the computer screen for much of that afternoon, my gaze drawn inexorably to the end of the first paragraph, time and again, to the word ‘Congratulations!’ There are few moments in any life that are truly memorable, but this was one of them.

More than anything, I wanted to say thanks to all the staff at the Arts Council personally, to give each of them a big bear hug (to hell with the covid restrictions!). The number of times I must have read and re-read those same few words put a strain on my eyes, so I printed the message, pinned it on my noticeboard, and started to read it all over again. If for a split second I thought the email might have been a hoax devised by a cruel scammer, the hard copy version was the real McCoy.

Arts Council England were offering nearly £10,000 (90% in advance!) in order for me to write the novel I’d been working at on and off for several years. Money that would give me the time, space and freedom to produce a finished draft. It was just what I’d always wanted.

Difficult as it may be to concede now as it was back then, amidst the giddy excitement there can be no denying I also felt a little bit afraid, ever mindful when a wish comes true.

*

We who live in the environs of Sefton are unusually blessed in one particular regard: less than a mile from our house you’ll come across the beach at Crosby, perhaps an unlikely setting for a series of installations by the world-renowned artist Anthony Gormley called the ‘Iron Men.’ Each figure is more or less an exact physical replica of Mr Gormley situated at intervals along the shore where they stare out across the estuary, and for good measure have to withstand the daily vagaries of the currents and the weather. At high tide, only those closest to the sea wall are visible. Further out you might happen to glimpse a metal skull between the waves, but those farthest out have been completely obliterated, only to re-appear as if by magic when the waters recede. 

More than once have I sought out their wise counsel, on the day in question it seemed the only place to go.  Late that afternoon at low tide, even the most bitter of winds couldn’t put me off walking virtually alone up and down the beach. I explained what had happened to each iron figure, as though sharing good news with a group of old friends - even if the dialogue was a little one-sided.

You can be sure that the boys now know how to keep a secret.

When I returned to the little back bedroom we’d converted into an office, the message was still pinned to the noticeboard. It felt like the only thing to have happened that day. How I got to sleep at night still remains a mystery, my mind consumed by all the peculiar problems inherent with any fictional enterprise.

I had to write a novel. And I’d agreed to maintain a journal, as part of the grant, which would need some careful retrospection…

*

And so the purpose of this first in a series of blogs - if all goes to plan -  is simple. If only one person reads this and makes a winning submission, it would be a source of great satisfaction to know that someone else can feel what I felt that day at the beach; where at some point beyond the sky or the sea or the wind in my face, there was nothing but an endless series of infinites possibilities…

Next up: I’ll talk about the process of applying for the DYCP programme and my research and planning methods.

Michael Hobbs has always been an avid reader of fiction and has written some occasional pieces - some published & on-line – having spent nearly twenty years in the creative sector in and around the North West. However it was his recent experience with Penguin Books that gave him the confidence to pursue his work more actively. In late 2020 he was shortlisted for the WriteNow programme for new and aspiring writers after sending them an extract from a novel in progress. Although he didn’t make the final list, their feedback encouraged Michael to apply successful for an Arts Council England programme in 2021. This year his plan is to further develop his writing career.