I’ve had the pleasure of working with some developing writers of late and have subsequently updated my services menu to get writers the help they need.

Important updates:

I have reduced the price of The First Three Chapters package

I have added in your synopsis for review.

I have added in a new ‘First Fifty Pages‘ package.

The first 50 pages of your manuscript is a commonly requested amount to submit to a publisher, agent or literary competition. The set-up of a story is so important.

Your first chapter is important. Is it enough to keep people reading?

The first three chapters are maybe even more crucial. By the end of the first three chapters, you’ll either have hooked your reader or not. If it’s a literary VIP reading it, those first three chapters are the most you’ll get out of their attention before they give up.

And the first fifty pages? If the VIP has read all the way to that point, they’re interested. If the first fifty pages just keep on getting better, that’s gold. If the first fifty pages has them dying to know what will happen next, even better.

If you have been lucky enough to be invited to send the first 50 pages in, you don’t want to waste that shot.

This Package is For You If:

You are getting ready to submit your work to a literary agent, a publisher, a grant application, or a competition.

Your ‘First 50 Pages’ Package Includes:

your opportunity to send me the first 50 pages of the book you are working on AND a one-page synopsis, for specialised feedback
my reading, preparing and reporting time
a Zoom meeting (up to 60 mins) with me so that we can go through the feedback together
an emailed copy (after our online meeting) of my notes, feedback and suggestions**
a mountain of useful information to help you take the next right steps
complimentary digital assets and/or working resources, delivered to your inbox
lifetime membership* to my private coaching/mentoring/assessment email list, with exclusive content for that group
FREE access to my e-course on how to find the time to write
lifetime invitation* to a quarterly Zoom call for all my students, where you can ask me anything, and also (if you want to) connect with other writers who might be writing similar stories to you. (Writing buddies are the best! You might find one here.)
GST, processing fees and printing costs

Your Investment: $550

In February 2009, QWC published an article I wrote called ‘The Power of the Positive’ in their WQ magazine, and I’m betting more than a few people thought I was a little nutty and ‘woo woo’.

I started off by saying, “It seems to me that there can be a tendency in writing circles to dramatise the negatives… the main message is all about how difficult writing is, how it’s nearly impossible for a first-time writer to get published, how the annual salary for full-time writers in Australia is ridiculously low, how you ‘shouldn’t give up the day job’, how you ‘shouldn’t get your hopes up’, how everything is so competitive and how the slush pile is so high and the editor’s time is so short.”

Sound familiar?

An excerpt from my article, 'The Power of the Positive' — An excerpt from my article, ‘The Power of the Positive’

The rest of the article goes on to talk about the importance of believing the positive, visualising success, and channeling all that creative energy you have into something useful, rather than something that’s going to tear you down and bring others down with you–incorporating some sports psychology and some new age theory too.

But most importantly, it poses the question, ‘Why can’t it be you?’

Now, my first novel, The Tea Chest, has finally made it out into the world. And I am living proof that you can rise above all that negativity out there that will shoot down your dreams before they’ve even started. I’m not saying it’s easy to face more than a decade of writing books (10 manuscripts in 12 years for me before I got a publishing deal) and literally hundreds of rejections. It’s emotionally hard going when you’ve put your soul into a piece of art that other people criticise. And then it just sits silently and invisibly on your laptop with no where to go (which is why I’ve turned some of my manuscripts into books via http://www.lulu.com, just so I could see the completion of the project).

And just for the record, The Tea Chest was submitted to every mentorship program and manuscript development program out there and not picked up.

You’ve got to do the work. Of course you do. I guarantee your book won’t get published if you don’t write it. But there is no predetermined expiration date or outcome on this. The sky truly is the limit (or maybe not even then).

Having said that, I do actually want to ‘ground’ this notion in a larger philosophy: that of art for art’s sake. Because I’m not saying you WILL achieve all those things you dream of. Sometimes, good work just won’t get published. This is not about bulldozing your way into perceived success via milestones and paycheques. The most important thing of all is to write. Just WRITE.

If you are going to become attached to anything, become attached to being a writer, not to your manuscript. Then you will be able to move on from the wonderful manuscript you’ve worked so hard on for so many years and write a new one, or indeed something else entirely.

And just for once, I won’t quote Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way (I do not work for Julia Cameron or get commission though the amount I plug her I probably should…), but instead I will quote Australian author, Torre de Roche:

“Forget the stats, the numbers, the wealth, the prestige, the popularity, the things you imagine to be waiting for you on the other side of ‘success.’ They’re not there, and if they are, they won’t stay long. Instead, work tirelessly to make your soul happy. Keep going until you’re standing before a big, glorious creation made by you, for you. Your baby—made of cells, or paper, or clay, or words. That’s yours.

Be proud. You did it for the simple joy of creating. There is nothing more to life than that.

So don’t quit.”

What I’m saying here is that we write because we must. We write because it makes us happy. That is why we do it. So do it.

But there is no harm in expecting the best along the way. There is no harm in valuing a financial reward for your art. Imagine your biggest, scariest possibility of whatever you deem to be ‘success’. Got it? Good. File it away somewhere in your heart and mind to revisit at a later date, shrug of the criticisms and the crazy looks you get when you say you’re working on a book (to which someone will instantly say, ‘oh, do you have a publisher?’ and you’ll squirm inside and say, ‘no, not yet’), and go write. It doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say about your ‘chances’ of being published. That’s their reality, not yours. Feel free to invent your own.