An hour is only 4% of your day
News, events, resources and opportunities
Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2025 - deadline 2nd June.
Idea Idol is BACK! Judged by Katie Blagden. Open until 30th June.
Faber Launches 2025 FAB Prize - deadline Friday 25th July.
Undiscovered Voices - deadline 8th September.
*Please note the above re; the free trial - we won’t be able to refund any subscriptions payments that roll.
And we’ll also give you the opportunity to earn free access simply be referring people to our newsletter. The more you refer, the more free months you can earn on the paid tier.
Hub Calendar (all times GMT/BST)
June
Hub catch up Monday 2nd 8pm with Melissa
YA Chat Tuesday 3rd 7pm with Melinda Salisbury
Writer’s Toolkit: Wednesday 4th 12pm - Polish your Pitches with Florianne
MG Chat Thursday 12th 7.30pm with Vashti Hardy
PB Chat Tuesday 10th 7pm with Rachael Davis
Agent/Editor Q&A: Friday 20th 10am with Hazel Holmes, Agent at Northernlit and Publisher at UCLan Publishing
July
PitchHero July 1st Hazel Holmes, Agent at Northernlit and Publisher at UCLan Publishing
YA Chat Tuesday 1st 7pm with Melinda Salisbury
Hub catch up Monday 7th 8pm with Melissa
PB Chat Tuesday 8th 7pm with Rachael Davis
MG Chat Thursday 10th 7.30pm with Vashti Hardy
Writer’s Toolkit: Monday 21st 11am Melissa Welliver, How to Show-Don’t-Tell in Fictional Worlds
A full calendar is here: https://write-mentor.com/events/
All sessions are recorded and available to watch back, so don’t fret about being there ‘live’. This is just a few of the many sessions/opportunities that happen every month in the Hub and are all available on catch-up if you join now.
We’re also delighted to announce another way to connect with us and the whole community:
WriteMentor Picture Book and Novel Awards 2025
Congratulations to those who made the shortlist of our Awards last week!
They will now be judges by the David Higham Associates agents and a winner announced in the near future.
Thanks again to all who entered and wishing you future success in our contests and the many others out there, while acknowledging that most published authors will not win a contest, so keep at it! Success is measured in so many (and usually individual) ways, not by contests!
A full list of the entries are here: https://write-mentor.com/2025/05/20/shortlists-2025-writementor-novel-and-picture-book-awards/
The Final Word
By Stuart White
An hour is only 4% of your day
While at risk of stating the obvious with this week’s title, I saw this the other day in a different context and it kind of took me by surprise, despite the fact that I believe I had a good grasp of maths and proportions etc.
*(Just to be clear for those reaching for the calculators, I know it’s not exactly 4%)
I am awfully bad for sometimes claiming I just don’t have time to write. Or I won’t even claim it. I will come home from a long day at work, or day out with the kids, and I’m feeling a bit tired.
I’ll sit down and convince myself that I need time to relax and I proceed to spend the next 2 or 3 hours doing little of anything. 12% of my day, doing nothing.
Or I’ll say it’s 9pm and it’s too late to start, or I’m too tired. Then before I know it, I’m still awake, watching TikTok videos of relatable parenting problems, at 11.30pm and rueing the misspent 2.5 hours, or 10% of my day.
And the thing is, even an hour is quite a long time to sit down and write - I’d day 20 or 30 mins is still a good shift if you can do it each day - so it’s maybe only 2% of your day that you realistically need to spend on writing to create a solid habit.
Now, let’s all be honest with ourselves for a moment - me included. Many of us claim we want to be authors or be published, but if we’re not willing to spend just 2% of our day working towards that dream, do we actually deserve it?
Also, is applying just 2% of yourself towards your dream, fair for your dream? How can we expect to achieve mastery over something if we apply so little of our time towards it?
If you play a sport or are training for a big event, like a 10k or a marathon, or studying for an exam, would you expect to spend less than 2% of your time on that thing, and get the result/outcome you wanted?
Simply put, you wouldn’t.
So this week, let’s all be really honest with ourselves and ask if we really want this thing enough. If you just wanna write for fun, then cool, spend whatever time you can, no pressure, on your writing. Similarly, there are other factors I understand so well, like disability and illness, that will impact the time you can give - but it’s all proportional, 4% of your well-time, rather than 24 hours, for example.
But if you’re actually serious about chasing that dream, isn’t it about time you gave that dream the time it deserves?
4% sounds so little, but it’s an hour of your day. 2% is minuscule, so get your head down and get 20-30 minutes a day done, or you’ll wake up, like me, 15 years down the line and realise you haven’t achieved all the dreams you desired, not through luck or any other factor except from the fact I wasn’t willing to give just 4% of my time towards my dream.
Maybe this week, I need to look in the mirror and ask myself those same questions I’ve posed for you.
Writing can be lonely, but it doesn’t need to be
May the Force be with you!
Stuart, Florianne and Melissa