East Sussex writers combine as The Collective for new family saga

The idea came to John Newton on the morning of Christmas Eve. He brought in friends and fellow writers to bring it to fruition. He is hoping the whole thing should be ready by the late summer.

John, who is 88, explains: “I am an author and I have written 11 books and I've been very successful in a minor way. I'm not a great big author but I sell books on a regular basis, and I woke up with a complete book in my head on Christmas Eve – a complete book and several characters. I jumped up quickly and ran into my study and I made notes.

"I got back to bed and I thought about it. I'm a great one for writing character rather than story; the stories come through the characters and I decided that I would get a number of my writer friends to assume Italian names and to join me in writing this. It's a story about a car business in 1922 and the sales are a bit stagnant.

"I am Salvatore, the designer and I have designed a brand-new car which is very up to date. We're all taking on names to write the story and we all have various functions within the company. I'm like the director of it all. People are writing their bits of the storyline which we thought up on a Zoom call. We had the meeting and at the start nobody knew what they were doing but when we finished the Zoom meeting we all had our storylines and everybody was really buzzing. They are wanting to get on with writing their individual chapters. My job will be to collect them together and to put them in line. We all know what will happen and we're just getting on with it. Salvatore has come up with this car design and I'm wanting to build a factory secretly…

“There is no deadline for the pieces. We're just getting on with it. Everything will be completely new and we're all working on the basis of doing it almost blind and then I will put it together. I've already had a board meeting which has set up the early storylines and now everybody is writing to that.”

But as a little teaser for later in the book John can reveal that he – or rather Salvatore – will get kidnapped by the mafia.

“This only began on Christmas Eve but I would hope that it would take about eight months and then we will publish the book. I wouldn't say it's a thriller. I would call it a family saga. Family goes right the way through. One of the families has got connections with the Mafia; one of them is complete idiot. They have all taken their places!”

Taking part are (asterisk denotes member of Anderida Writers): Real name, collective name, company function; Deanne Smith – Novella d’ Bergamasco, materials and colour co-ordinator*; Richard Willis – Paolo d’ Bergamasco, professor; Tony Flood – Anton d’ Bergamasco, marketing director; Karen Glennon – Isabella d’ Bergamasco, creative director; John Silverton – Giuseppe d’ Bergamasco, financial director*; John Newton– Salvatore d’ Bergamasco, design director, engineer, chairman*; Tim Purcell – Frank Howard Bernstein, shady American entrepreneur; Francis Wait – Francisco D'Angelo, corrupt politician*; and Mike Haffner – Cesare Pancucci, honest policeman*.

Eastbourne writer Tony Flood is celebrating the launch of his new crime thriller Fall Guy. Tony, endorsed by best-selling author Peter James, combined the launch with a meeting of Anderida Writers and the introduction of The Collective."The launch of Fall Guy has been a great success. People were impressed by the story about me and other recommendations. As a result, people wanted to read Fall Guy and one reader purchased all three books in my crime series featuring compassionate copper DCI Harvey Livermore, the first two books being Triple Tease and Stitch Up - killer or victim?”