I’m not throwing away my shot!
News, events, resources and opportunities
Advanced Picture Book Course with Clare Helen Welsh. Starts Tues 22nd April.
Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2025 - deadline 2nd June.
Summer Mentoring Programme - mentors announced. Applications open 7-11th April. Mentoring begins 1st May - 30th August.
Hub Calendar (all times GMT/BST
April
Hub catch up Monday 7th 8pm with Melissa
PB Chat Tuesday 8th 7pm with Rachael Davis
YA Chat Tuesday 8th 7pm with Melinda Salisbury
MG Chat Thursday 10th 7.30pm with Vashti Hardy
Q&A with Lorna Hemingway: Tuesday 15th 7pm
Industry Insights: Tuesday 22nd April 1.30pm Sara Grant on Unique Ways to Edit and Revise a novel
PitchHero: Lorna Hemingway 29th April (pitch on 28th).
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
Thank you for all the entries! We are now closed and received over 800 entries across the categories.
We will now take some time to read all those entries and come up with long lists for each one, and will inform you here and on our social media channels when those lists will be published. So you can switch off and not think about it again, and just read this newsletter each Monday to be apprised.
The Final Word
By Stuart White
I’m not throwing away my shot!
As many of you know, I am a bit Hamilton obsessive - the show itself is incredible but the songs and especially the lyrics are so, so deep. Without nerding out too hard, the whole motif of ‘taking your shot’ and the repeated theme for the all the characters but specifically for Hamilton and Burr, always hit hard and deep with me personally, for all that I strive towards in life, but especially on a writing level.
I write this in the context of our awards having just closed, another one just opening and our Summer Mentoring programme applications being open this week. All great opportunities, and ones worth not missing.
Over the years I’ve gone through cycles of taking my shots, in terms of these opportunities, and without fail I’ve found that taking my shots > not taking my shots. Every single time.
And yet, I will continue to not take it - sometimes I convince myself that too much personal stuff is happening in my life, that my health will not allow me, that work is too busy, that the kids are my priority etc etc but it all amounts to excuses.
What I’m really doing is creating barriers (which do exist but I am absolutely amplifying their importance and reducing it for those opportunities) so I can justify not going for it, and potentially failing or at least not being successful. It’s a natural, ingrained, evolutionary line of thinking that has helped up survive for thousands of years, but it’s not as helpful to us in this day and age.
Simply put, the more opportunities you take, the luckier you get, and the more successful you are likely to become. I mean, it’s not necessarily a direct causation, but there’s certainly correlation between those winning opportunities, becoming published and being ‘successful’ to how many opportunities they take.
In short, if you don’t take your shot you can never win.
If you do, you might not always win, but one day, if you keep taking them, you surely will.
Or to use a famous basketball quote: ‘You miss 100% of the shots you never take.’
And this at a macro-level. When we maginify our lens and adjust our microscopes and look deeper, we can apply this same principle to every single day, nay every single moment and small decision we make in that moment.
Do I sit down and spend 10 minutes writing 200 words? Or do I rewipe the kitchen surfaces. Do I scroll social media for 30 minutes while I wait in the car outside my kid’s gymnastics class, or do I grab a notepad and brainstorm/plot my next story?
I am absolutely guilty of something just as bad - productive procrastination. I will sit and find ANYTHING that needs doing and do that, rather than take my shot some days. Just the other day, I went round the house and did a lightbulb inventory - checked which were working, how many I had in the cupboard to replace and then replaced 4 of them before ordering more.
It’s the kind of classic activity of the person who throws away their shot!
So this week, in the micro-moments or even the macro-, seriously question yourself - can I not actually take my shot or am I putting up, or amplifying, barriers that don’t need to be there.
Something I heard the other day, and I’ve been trying to apply as much as possible is the following phrase.
Each day, create before you consume.
Applying that to writing, I’ve vowed to always have to write something before I read a book or watch something on tv. Create before I consume.
And I reckon if I do that, it will help so much and put me in a much better position to make sure I’m always taking my shots.
Make sure this week you’re not throwing away your shots!
Writing can be lonely, but it doesn’t need to be
May the Force be with you!
Stuart, Florianne, Melissa and Emily