Laura glanced down at her notes. She had this Maggie Jones noted down as promising. The book she’d entered was a bit downbeat but Laura was confident she’d be able to put a bit of uplift into it, if she knew it was required.

‘Well, if you’re know you’re good, there’s no point in pretending you’re not,’ said John, although he flushed slightly.

‘Confidence is a gender thing,’ said Samantha, who didn’t seem to be lacking in it herself.

‘I think you’re right,’ said Tracy, a feisty young woman who had proudly announced she wrote short romance novels. According to Laura’s notes, they were sparky and very sexy.

‘And your point is?’ Dermot said to John.

‘I just wonder if there’s any point in this course.’

John’s words caused a frisson of anxiety around the room.

‘Probably not,’ said Dermot, his lazy delivery belying his critical gaze.

An anxious silence filled the room until Maggie spoke up. ‘I’m sure we’ve all got a lot to learn. I know I have. After all, I presume we’re going to be reading stuff out to each other. When you read it to yourself, it always seems amazing.’

Laura smiled fondly at her. She was going to contribute and co-operate, what a relief!

‘I’d rather just work on my novel than do a lot of poxy exercises,’ said John.

‘In which case you shouldn’t have entered the competition,’ put in Laura. ‘Exercises are extremely useful and we’re going to be doing a lot of them.’ Rather too late she remembered that she and Dermot hadn’t discussed what they were going to do in detail. She shot him a look and he returned it with an amused eyebrow.

‘Yes,’ said Maggie. ‘Lots of people would have given their eye teeth to be here. If you’re lucky enough to be chosen, you should make the most of your opportunities.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Writing is a strange, ephemeral thing,’ said Dermot, smoothing over potential troubled waters. ‘You never know what’s going to help and what’s not. I don’t intend to do exercises on punctuation. But writing for a given time on a given subject can really loosen you up.’

Dermot was cruel. They had five minutes to write about ‘money’. Another five to cover ‘death’, but ten whole minutes to write about ‘birth’.

As a concession, he allowed people to choose what they considered to be their best piece before making them read it out. He’d done the exercises himself and went first.

‘It’s to give you lot confidence,’ he explained. ‘When you see how crap I am, you’ll feel a lot happier about exposing yourselves to the criticism of others.’