Before there is a novel, there is a room.
Not necessarily a grand one, nor lined with books from floor to ceiling – although that would be fabulous. Sometimes it is simply a table cleared of yesterday’s clutter. A chair drawn forward with intention. A calendar entry opened to a block of time that reads: Writing.
The beginning of a novel is not the first sentence. It is the decision to make the time and space.
In our action-packed lives, writing rarely announces itself loudly. It waits. Patient. Persistent. It asks only that we meet it halfway. To write a novel is to carve out time as an act of quiet rebellion — to say that imagination matters enough to be scheduled. It is a purpose all of its own.
At Y Segontiwm, we are creating that room deliberately. We are inviting writers to step into a space where the world softens at the edges and the page becomes possible. When the door closes and notebooks open, something shifts. The mind recognises the ritual. Now, it says, we begin.
Graham Greene, one of my favourite authors, was known for setting himself a modest daily word count, often just five hundred words. He understood that inspiration is not something to be awaited like weather; it is something to be summoned through the simple act of showing up. As he once said, “I have learnt that you can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Beneath the humour lies a truth: momentum builds in increments.
There is also something very special about the atmosphere of a shared creative space. Muriel Spark described writing as “a state of grace.” Grace arrives, perhaps, when we make ourselves ready for it — when we sit down and we trust the quiet unfolding of thought. A dedicated place, returned to week after week, becomes charged with that readiness. The walls begin to hold intention, even more powerful in a small group aligned in a common goal.
From this space, story begins to stir.
A plot does not arrive fully formed. It grows from a pulse of curiosity: What does someone want? What stands in their way? Desire and resistance — these are the two of the pillars of narrative. The rest is listening. Listening to what happens when a character makes a choice. Listening to what happens when that choice costs them something.
Characters themselves emerge slowly, as real people do. They are not built from heroic gestures but from contradictions. The brave woman who fears being alone forever. The apparently confident man who hides a sense of unworthiness. Give them a longing. Give them a flaw. Give them something they cannot quite say aloud. Readers are drawn not to perfection but to recognition — that flicker of shared humanity that makes us lean closer to the page.
And yet, writing can feel solitary in its early stages. Words written in private can seem fragile, untested. This is where The Scribblers becomes more than a gathering. It becomes a circle of trust.
To read a draft aloud is an act of courage. To listen with generosity is an act of care. In sharing progress, writers discover that uncertainty is not failure but process. Encouragement does not dilute ambition; it strengthens it. Constructive feedback does not wound the work; it shapes it. Week by week, the pages accumulate. So does confidence.
There is something quietly powerful about marking the calendar and protecting that time. It tells the imagination that it is welcome here. It tells the self that creativity is not an indulgence but a commitment.
Y Segontiwm now holds that commitment for The Scribblers. It offers a table, a pause, a collective breath. Prompts and guidance provide direction, but it is the atmosphere — steady, supportive, expectant — that allows writers to cross the threshold from idea to action.
Every novel begins long before it finds a publisher or a reader. It begins in a room. In a decision. In the simple, repeated act of returning to the page.
The rest unfolds from there.
If you’d like to join us to share your writing endeavours in a welcoming group led by author Dr DeAnn Bell simply email hello@lifefullcolour.com We meet on Monday evenings from 6-8pm at Y Segontiwm.
