It has always been my dream to write a novel. I’ve tried to pin myself down into a genre. One week I’ll enthuse about writing a romance novel. The next week, I’ll have decided on crime or science fiction. When I pick a genre, I often don’t have a story idea in my head. I set out to find the story, and I often fail.
That is why I’ve decided to start with an idea first and worry about genre later. For a while now, I’ve been working on something I call “The Pear Novel”. This might well be a literary fiction novel, but I don’t know yet. There are fantasy elements. Do I emphasise those? Who knows!
The point of The Pear Novel is that I have an idea in my hands like clay. I can form it and shape it and worry about neat definitions later. I am currently in the early drafting stage of this novel, but I cannot wait to share it with you.
To see updates about the novel writing process, please read my dedicated blog:
https://thepearnovel.blogspot.com
To read a story from the world of The Pear Novel, please see ‘Ellie Whitehill’s Pear Cake’:
https://ijwriting.com/2026/08/31/ellie-whitehills-pear-cake/
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