At Acorn, we know that the blank page staring back at you can be a little intimidating and want to help you on your journey to literary greatness. We have devised this Write Your Novel This Year scheme to give you a comprehensive grounding in the basics of novel writing. It is perfect for complete beginners or can act as a fun refresher course for writers wanting to strengthen their core skills.

Each month we will be focusing on a different aspect of novel writing with exercises and tips to get you started as well as extension exercises to help you develop longer pieces of writing.

Writing is a journey, you are not going to get it right first time but you are going to learn every step of the way. Even if you end up tearing some of your writing up, you will have learnt something in the process.

Before you get started:

1. Buy yourself a lovely notebook and take it everywhere with you. You never know when inspiration might strike.
2. Make time. You are going to need to make some time and space in your life on a weekly basis if you really want to progress with your writing in 2011.
3. Tell your partner/friends/family what you are doing and why it is important to you as you will need their support and encouragement throughout this exciting year.
4. Back everything up. Computers can be tricky beasts and you need to keep your work safe. You can just save it and email it to yourself rather than buying an external hard disk.

For the first exercise. For the Acorn Publishing newsletter.