Sarah Butler started her novel on an Advanced Fiction course at The Hurst in 2007. She tells us about writing that novel, keeping going and eventually getting published:

‘I started Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love on an advanced fiction Arvon course, led by Maggie Gee and Jacob Ross, at The Hurst in 2007. I had just finished a novel and was starting to think about what to write next. I remember sitting in the studio during a workshop and suddenly knowing what my next novel was. Within two hours I had a plot and two characters I couldn’t wait to write about. I spent that week exploring who they were and how the story would work, going for long walks in the surrounding countryside, getting up at 7am to write (which I never seem to manage at home) and talking to Maggie and Jacob about my ideas. I shared the beginnings of the novel during the reading session at the end of the week. The novel took another four and a half years to finish, but the plot and the characters did not change dramatically from the idea that came during that magical morning in Shropshire.’

Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love will be published by Picador in February 2013.

www.sarahbutler.org.uk