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Hi. I'm Isabel, recent Worcester graduate, northerner, and the author of Etiquette, which came out in September.

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It's a school story, kind of a modern day glamorous Malory Towers, set

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at a kind of a finishing school, really. In terms of my inspiration for the book.

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Well, when I was a teenager, I had a bit of a self-improvement flurry.

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So I read Debretts Etiquette for Girls. And as a bit of a thought experiment,

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I started writing these little scenes where someone absolutely clueless was thrown

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into this world of lobster and grapefruit spoons and how to behave at polo matches.

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And 70,000 words later, I had a novel.

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I also went to boarding school myself. So the camaraderie there and then later on at Worcester definitely makes its way into Etiquette.

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The exam stresses, the gossip, celebrating Oxmas, the hijinks, and as we all know Worcester is the friendliest college ever.

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So I never felt unwelcome or out of place in any sense.

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But I think we can all relate to the early days imposter syndrome where you're absolutely convinced

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that it's a terrible admin mistake that landed you there rather than your own intellect.

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So that definitely informs the first half of the novel and that kind of alienated

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new girl feeling. In terms of how I found the process of writing Etiquette,

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I largely found that it just happened, I think because it's based on a few of my own experiences and reasonably true to my own voice

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it really flowed. I certainly didn't have any set 'writing times' or 'writing places'.

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Sometimes I wrote on my laptop at home, sometimes on my phone standing in a queue.

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I think where I made more of a conscious effort - there were two points, really.

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First of all, when it came to the novel's more serious themes.

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On one level, probably the main level, it's a delightful little story about girls at boarding school getting up to mischief.

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But it also deals with themes of class, of 'poshness', of the realities of being a teenager today,

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different backgrounds. I was really aiming for genuine representation, quite an authentic, diverse cross-section of today's teenagers,

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so I did do my research about tropes to avoid.

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I was really on my guard to make sure that there weren't any assumptions or stereotypes kind of riddling their way surreptitiously into the text.

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And the second thing that took more effort on my part was the actual publication process itself.

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Etiquette is self published. I chose to go down that route.

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So the formatting, the cover design, I did the cover art myself, publicising it afterwards,

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that took a bit more effort, but I loved having that creative control, so it was certainly worth it.

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Something I learnt at Worcester that's helped me with my writing is simply ploughing on, stamina.

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I studied German and Philosophy, which is very writing heavy anyway.

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So I think that really helps me in terms of being self-critical, editing, drafting, redrafting, also churning out quite a large volume of work,

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sometimes in a short space of time if needed. I also think - I don't want to go on about confidence and belief in this kind of self-important way - 

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but I think studying at Worcester really showed me that nothing is insurmountable, no matter how difficult it seems at first.

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Although, as I say that I think my old logic tutor might disagree with me.

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I was truly terrible at logic, but I think in general, being at Worcester showed me nothing is insurmountable.

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Whether it's a novel or an essay, that one word that you're looking for, that one sentence that's on the tip of your tongue,

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you will think of it, that blank, awful, intimidating page staring at you.

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It will get words written on. It just takes some time. I think that's a big thing that I took from my time

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at Worcester. Thank you very much to Sophie Clayton for inviting me to be part of the Worcester Writers podcast,

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And thank you for watching.