Making A Novel Exist

It is always strange being asked to chair discussions about a book you wrote. I have never failed to be surprised by the questions the audience most want answered. I suppose it is intriguing- how did a book come from nothing, a mere idea, to ending up in the shops? At what point does an idea become a valid, existing entity? To research my novel Letters from Yelena I conducted years of research, and travelled to Russia to gain insights into the carefully guarded lives of the ballerinas there. I was one of the first English people to be allowed complete access to the world's most famous ballet school, The Vaganova. At times it felt like the novel would not be finished, and I simply would never get the information I needed. In this discussion group I discuss how I wrote a novel which, to my surprise, ended up adapted as a play, reaching a Bestseller in Fiction List, and used as GCSE training material. I hope it will be helpful for anyone who is writing, or planning to write a book.
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