However. You can, it transpires, encourage people of all ages to tap into their innate writing talent, and to let their imagination run wild. You can show them different ways of writing, help them find a starting point, and stand back and watch the amazing results.

Last September, I started a writing club at my children’s primary school. I did it out of a vague idea that it would be fun, coupled with a feeling that I should do something nice for a school at which all three of my children are extremely happy.

I roped in Craig Green, the school’s other resident writer-parent, and the writing club was, instantly, something amazing.

The children who come along every Monday (and they are a diverse group) are, when they step into the club, bright, keen, ambitious and imaginative. We have watched them grow in confidence until even the shy ones are often jumping up and down in their desperation to be picked to read out what they have written. If they don’t want to read aloud, Craig (who has the voice for it) will do it for them. Everything everybody writes is appreciated. We have set them to work writing stories, plays, poetry, haikus and letters. They always seize the task and throw themselves into it. Both of us are phenomenally proud of our writers.

We go nowhere near the National Curriculum, and never give a moment’s thought to SATs or box-ticking of any sort. We encourage children to write for the joy of it; and they respond in an overwhelming and phenomenal way. I see in their faces the same joy that I take in losing myself in writing my books.

Inspired by this, Craig and I have set up a writing venture, Barrington Green (named after a village we invented, using our names, to use as a setting for much of last term’s writing. There is a map of Barrington Green that I made myself, so it does exist. It was recently invaded by aliens, which was unnerving for the residents, though no lasting harm was done). With the help of Falmouth Town Council, we are offering workshops and courses to children from the wider community. They will take place in the Council Chamber, which, as settings go, is very grand indeed.

This part is mainly interesting if you live in Cornwall. Things will kick off with a workshop for children aged 8-13 on May 1st. We have ten places available, and they will be given to the children who produce the most striking written work about, or set in, Falmouth. It can be a story, a poem or a script, and we are interested in things that make us gasp or laugh; things that are original. If your child, or any child you know, would like to enter, they should write something in 500 words or fewer and email it to competition@barringtongreen.co.uk before Friday April 20th.

That workshop will be a warm-up for our intensive August summer school, from August 6th-9th, with sessions for children from 8-11 (mornings) and 12-16 (afternoons). We have already booked in guest speakers including TV writer James Henry and children’s author Liz Kessler, and children will have a chance to try out many different ways of writing, as well as working on their own longer project.

We will be offering some scholarship places for this week – details to follow. To join our mailing list, just send an email to writers@barringtongreen.co.uk. You can also find us on twitter @BarringtonGreen.

And, wherever you live, even if it is far from Cornwall (and let’s face it, many places are), encourage your children to write. They are amazing.

A copy editor’s job is to go through a book and check every detail. Occasionally, going through their queries can be, ahem, frustrating. This time it wasn’t: every point she made was spot-on. And then I got to the ‘style sheet’ she’d added to the end.

In my defence, I couldn’t spell-check the book properly because my computer was running so slowly (it has since broken completely and been replaced). My style sheet is an alphabetical list the copy editor made for me of all the spelling and style errors I made. I find it delightful and funny, because it gives you a perfect précis of the book as a whole. For that reason, I’m reproducing it here. This is my sheet of shame:

adrenalin

bougainvillea

Brizzie (Brisbane)

chirruping

cholesterol

cooperation

drily

earrings

earth/heaven

Ecstasy (drug)

email

fallback

flip-flops

geckos

girlie

guidebook

hellhole

Hotmail

impostor

jet lag

jokey

make-up

Mass (church service)

minuscule

mosquitoes/mozzies

multicoloured

multi-storey

newly-weds

OK

on to

pockmarked

rainforest

rainwater

rear-view mirror

ringtone

sandcastle

seafront

seawater

semicircle

shiny

slidey

smiley

stallholder

T-shirt

unshakeable

unusable

Valium

veranda

Westerner

whitish

And that, alphabetically, encapsulates absolutely everything you need to know about my new book.

In fact, the difference between how bad it is, and how amazingly insightful I thought it was at the time, is so hilarious that I feel the need to share it. You are allowed laugh. Here goes (it’s quite long, I’m afraid – do skim over it):

Earth Shattering

Why is today merely an extension of yesterday,

Which, itself, was an unplanned afterthought

To its own yesterday?

Why is there always steely-grey relentless acid rain,

Which, drop by drop, dissolves my defences,

Making me remember, when I’m trying to forget?

Do you remember when each day was an adventure,

Shaped effortlessly, individually?

Remember our field: three orange triangular tents,

Long, yellowing, prickly grass, with angelic daisies,

Two gentle Jersey cows, with eyelashes?

It was three miles to the farmhouse.

One morning, you got up, wrote a note, and cycled to the farm to buy the milk.

You can’t have been gone long when we woke up.

It was a gorgeous day!

The smell of freshly cut grass drifted across from nearby fields.

A sky like the tinted ones on postcards smiled down on us,

And, in the distance, a patch of scarlet

Brightened the golden and green spheres

Of our patchwork quilt.

We made daisy chains for the cows

And waited for you, for the milk.

After an hour, we were beginning to be thirsty and irritable;

You’d probably stopped to swim, or to drink the milk, or simply to sit in a field, being.

Finally, someone cycled off to escort you back.

He was gone slightly too long.

And when he came back,

We didn’t dare ask,

But he told us, all the same .

Then everything was a mockery

Of itself. The childlike sky with its cotton-wool clouds

Closed in on us, chanting

‘I don’t care! I don’t care!’, laughing.

The smell of the grass grew nauseatingly sweet

Until it suffocated us. The Jersey cows

Were facists in their nonchalance.

And on the horizon, poppies were glaring blinding

Blood. All time was there

Time past, time to come.

The world stood still.

And still it stands. Although the summer’s past,

The weather less lethal

(Growing slowly, rather than destroying in a second)

Although I know that ‘life goes on’

And there’s a routine to be adhered to

Although I have officially ‘got over’ you;

There’ll always be a field

With daisies, cows and summer,

Where your friends will wait for the milk.

I hope the emotional impact of that will not affect readers too adversely! I used to write poetry all the time. I don’t any more, and now I know why. Anyone else?