WORKSHOP
After reading English at Lancaster, Myszka Matthews taught others to write through her career in secondary education, for nineteen years, before embarking on her own creative writing as she was setting up a writing retreat at her home in the Peak District. This novel came about as a result of sharing a writing exercise with a group, which rapidly revealed a character with her own story to tell.
What problems have you been having with your book?
The novel grew out of two separate writing exercises that I undertook with two different groups of guests at Foxes’ Retreat. I began with a clear plot line linking the two pieces, but I was finding it hard to manage the narrative voice, as it seemed to be taking over and became overly ‘Hardy-esque’ in places. It felt like there was too much ‘telling not showing’ and initially it was too wordy.
