How I wrote my novel with Kritikme - by Cate.

I've started many books over the years but, until today, I'd only finished one. That one came from an MA in Creative Writing and took nearly two years to write. After I'd finished I sent it off to agents and publishers and got some nice comments on my writing, but no enthusiasm at all for the book. I knew it was flawed but didn't know how to fix it.

A little while later I started another. This one was going to be the one. It had a cracking premise and a protagonist I really cared about. I took a synopsis and three chapters to a Writers' Workshop conference in York and got really positive feedback from three agents. One wanted to see it as soon as I had finished. But I couldn't finish it. I got stuck somewhere around the middle and stayed stuck for a year. Then I read a review in the Sunday Times of my book. Same premise, same setting, same main character name for God's sake!

I wallowed for another year, flip-flopping between writing mine anyway and throwing it away. My son was doing his A-levels so I announced that I wasn't writing for a year, sick of the guilt that not writing brings.

Finally I started another book, joined a course at City Lit to make me write it, and got stuck again. Broke all the promises I'd made about writing it quickly this time. I sat becalmed for long enough to convince myself I didn't know what I was doing. If I couldn't even decide if my protagonist was 25 or 55, how could I put her in a book? Maybe that thing I'd wanted to be all my life - literally since I was old enough to know there were writers I'd wanted to be one - was not for me?

But I had another idea - another one that in theory should practically write itself. Did I mention I'm an optimist? I bought a notebook - it always starts with a new notebook - and noodled about in it.

Mslexia plopped onto my doormat, and I stopped to read it. Right at the end was a tiny article about Louise Dean and Kritikme. I went straight to the website, read about the Novel in Ninety course and signed up on the spot.

I cleared off my desk to make a space for me alone, surrounded by things I like to look at. On the shelf above it I lined up the books Louise mentioned in her reading lists, plus a few hero books of my own.

I was itching to start in earnest, and held off as long as I could. I bought a Moleskine notebook, unlined per Louise's advice, and opened my mind to the wonders of a truly blank page.

Getting up was easy - though I confess I set my alarm for 6, not 5. I started on 4 June and needed only to raise the blind to light my page.

I opened each morning post like a Christmas present, thrilled by how often Louise's notes would answer a something I'd thought of a day or two before. I used the posts to wake me up, reading them at my desk with a mug of tea.

Then I'd close my iPad, pick up my pen (black uni-ball eye needle micro, since you ask) and write. It was episodic to begin with - any scene I could imagine. After the first month it became more linear, with one chapter following on from the day before. I wrote each day for an hour or 90 minutes - averaging six pages of double spaced handwriting - around 900 words. I'd be done by 7.30 most mornings. Then I'd go on with my day, doing other things but carrying my book in my head. Best of all I wasn't feeling guilty about not writing, because I was! I never got stuck. There was only one day I didn't write at all, but that was very near the end and I was making notes instead.

Morning is a magic time, and I felt the process was almost mystical. I had a panic just over a week ago about the end, but a call with Louise soon set me straight.

And now I'm done. There's a lot of "finishing" to do, but I've laid down a first draft within the promised time. I know it benefits from having been written in one go - my characters are more consistent for a start. The funny thing is I don't particularly care what happens to it. I'll keep working on it and make it as close to a "real" book as I can, but if nobody wants to take it up that's okay. Because I know I can always write another one. All I need is a new Moleskine, and 90 days.

And Louise and Kritikme at my back.