Life’s pretty straight without mentees…

I’m sitting in the library on what is supposed to be my writing day – the one day a week I get eight hours uninterrupted writing as opposed to snippets on the other days. Today though I am procrastinating. I am just a little bit excited that the announcements have come out for the Australian Society of Authors Emerging Writers Mentorships and I am one of the winners! All of a sudden I am being asked for headshots, press release details and literary bios – something that as an unpublished author I have never had to think about before.

For a while now I have been wondering what on earth I would have to write about in a blog and last night my clever husband suggested that the concept had just fallen in my lap – I could write about my experience as an emerging writer in the mentor program. So here I am, two coffees down, not a lot achieved on my novel, Linkedin page created and first blog post being bashed out.

I sent my entry in for the emerging writers mentorship with ASA back in January and I have to admit I thought my chances were so slim that I promptly forgot about it. Perth Writers Festival passed and I was still getting words on the page when I had a call from Lucie at ASA advising me that I was one of the winners! I told her it was like winning a holiday. Actually it’s the exact opposite as the hard yards really need to go in now. However it is just as exciting as winning a holiday. For me, a writer only published in travel articles, who has been plodding away a bit aimlessly for years, writing whatever came to mind, it was absolutely thrilling to finally have someone (in fact a group of someones) think that my writing was good enough to get this award. My son thinks I’m awesome and the previously mentioned husband thinks I’m pretty great too but they are biased and until now I hadn’t been so sure anyone else would ever see a single word I had written that wasn’t part of a facebook status update. I’m still not sure they will but I am feeling slightly more confident!

So after my phone call from Lucie came the email requesting headshots (not an alcoholic drink downed in one mouthful) and a bio (how on earth does one write 100 words about themselves?). I asked that husband person to take some photos with the hope I could crop one to size and rallied my in laws who are staying with us to get some help with the bio. It seemed easier to ask someone else what they would write about me as I couldn’t get past 43 words on my own! After they were dispatched to ASA the next email advised they would get in touch with my mentor choice and ask her if she was interested in my project so now the finger biting wait begins while I find out if she will take me on…

Week one as a mentee and the rest of the year to go. I will keep you updated on my progress if you want to read it or I can send you the links to some much better blogs if you thinks this idea is pants!

Thanks for getting this far x

1 comment
  1. Penguins are much yummier than Tim Tams!

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