The not-really-NaNoWriMo novel is progressing apace. After a slow (ie mostly knitting, watching TV, seeing friends and dog-walking) weekend, it was back to the studio yesterday, and I finished the fourth section of ‘Surrounded By Water’, and passed the 35,000 word mark. (Before you get really impressed, I need to remind you that I did have 15,000 words at the start of November.)

Here’s something I’m learning about writing a novel. Even if you’re writing a novel in a contemporary setting, in your own country, with no storylines that involve complex science, engineering, mathematics, politics, art history, or other specialist themes – there’s still an awful lot of stuff you discover that you don’t know. (This may be why there are so many novels about writers.)

So, I have a big list of things I need to know about. I’ve had lovely help from a translator and an architect already, but I wonder if you know much about any of the areas listed below? And if you do, whether you would be willing to answer a few questions about them, either by email or telephone?

I’d love to talk to:

- someone who is a GP in a small UK town

- someone who is a police officer in a small UK town and/or deals in family liaison

- someone who can answer a few basic questions about genetics (likely inherited eye colour, inherited diseases etc)

- someone who can tell me about the legal ins and outs of a member of a family trying to discover the paternity of a child who may have been fathered by a member of the family (but they are not the father)

Also, if you’d like to read the early sections of the novel and tell me what you think, I’d love to hear from you.

Please drop me an email, letting me know what you can help with, and we’ll take it from there.

Thank you very, very much. Anyone who tells you that writing is a solitary profession is fibbing. (Unless, of course, they write books about lonely writers….)