Talent doesn’t really matter
News, events, resources and opportunities
WriteMentor Picture Book and Novel Awards 2025 - open NOW (including an adult category for the first time)!
Story Jam session with Clare Helen Welsh. Thursday 20th February 7-830pm.
Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2025 - deadline 2nd June.
Success Stories
We absolutely adore sharing your good writing news, from signing with an agent, to your publishing deal, or a competition win or shortlisting - whatever it is, if you’re part of our community, and want us to shout on social media, do send florianne@write-mentor.com an email (and cc in stuart@write-mentor.com) to let us know and we will help you celebrate and share!
"As someone who's benefited from feedback as a WriteMentor Novel Award entrant, my children's debut, Letty and the Mystery of the Golden Thread, is Blackwell Books Children's Book of the Month. Thank you so much for the encouragement and sense of community WriteMentor provides."
Congratulations to Catherine Friess (x2), Jane Mooney, Libby Hartwell and everyone who reached the SL for the Searchlight Awards last week!
Shoutout to Tom Lancaster, multiple WM PB award SL-er, who won the PB category!
And to Gavin Crippin, who has listed in our NID and Idea Idol awards, who won the novel category!
Well done everyone!
Hub Calendar (all times GMT/BST)
February
Toolkit Emily on Your Story Patchwork - Idea Generation: Thursday 21st 12pm
ND Chat Thursday 21st 8pm with Emily
March
Hub catch up Monday 4th 8pm with Melissa
YA Chat Tuesday 4th 7pm with Melinda Salisbury
ND Chat: Thursday 6th March 7.30pm with Emily
PB Chat Tuesday 11th 7pm with Rachael Davis
MG Chat Thursday 13th 7.30pm with Vashti Hardy
Industry Insights: Pamela Butchart on Writing LMG, Tuesday 18th March 10am
Pitch Hero: Wednesday 19th Francesca Ali from WME
Agent/Editor Q&A: Monday 24th 10am Frankie Edwards from Headline
April
YA Chat Tuesday 1st 7pm with Melinda Salisbury
ND Chat: Thursday 3rd 8pm with Emily
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
Industry Insights: Tuesday 22nd April 1.30pm Sara Grant on Unique Ways to Edit and Revise a novel
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:
Android version coming soon.
WriteMentor Picture Book and Novel Awards 2025
We’re open NOW (including an adult category for the first time)!
We’re so excited to see the entries coming in already! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hearing from our literary agent judges, as well as former winners and listees on how the awards have change their writing lives.
Advice from Picture Book Category Judge Deirdre Power
Advice from Children’s Book Category Judge Christabel McKinley
Advice from Adult Category Judge Maddalena Cavaciuti
You have until the end of March 2025 to enter, so no hurry, but to help you:
Advice from past award winners
The Final Word
By Stuart White
Talent doesn’t really matter
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
I think about this a lot.
And I think about it because I know, deep down, I’m not really working very hard.
I’m working, for sure, and I’m making a little progress, absolutely. But working hard, or hardly working? Unfortunately it’s probably more the latter.
We all know what we, as individuals, are capable of.
We have some degree of self-awareness over our talent for writing and we know much more keenly, how hard we are working.
I am not the most talented writer ever - far from it. I have my own unique way of doing it, you could call it, but no-one ever read one of my books and sat back afterwards blown away and said ‘that was beautiful’ or ‘what a writer!’.
And, of course, that can’t be true for 99.9% of us. Would we all like that? For sure. But it’s not going to happen because we tell stories in our own voice (or we should!) and that voice will not resonate in that way for a majority of readers.
It’s like trying to find that other person on Earth who likes a Mars Bar dipped in ketchup.
Sure there will be one other weirdo out there (or maybe even a few), but most people resonate at their own frequency, maybe only a 0.00001 Hz of a difference, but enough that you’ll rarely/never be called ‘talented’.
Have you come to terms with this? Good. Now let’s get to the thing that really matters as a writer.
The work.
I’ve got so much to say about the work. It’s all that matters, ultimately. Nothing else in the publishing process really matters, or it shouldn’t, if you’re in this for the long haul.
If you want an author career, it’s not about one book, or even two or three.
It’s about the ability to get your butt on the seat (or stand if you’re a weirdo like me), and type lots and lots of words (obviously with as much quality and voice as you can, but I’d argue even those can be fixed later if you just get the words done first).
It’s a process, that we must learn how to repeat over and over, and quickly to boot.
Now, we obviously don’t want to just be churning out any old words, so I’m not for a moment suggesting all career authors just sit like an automaton and punch keys all day. They obviously plan and mull and take their time etc etc.
And I’m also conscious that sometimes the tortoise will beat the hare, but only if they hare is messing around or not being laser focussed.
You can be the hare and win, if only you have purpose and clarity and you put in the hard work. The hare has more talent for moving fast than the tortoise but the tortoise can win if it works harder, and smarter, than the hare.
There are gatekeepers to talent. There are none to hard work. There is no ceiling and consistency is the keystone of that hard work. I am not suggesting hard work looks like 5000 words a day. I am suggesting it looks like 50 words EVERY DAY or 500 words every 3 days, or whatever it looks like for YOU!
So don’t get confused on this message - we are all unique and this journey and process will also be specific to you as an individual.
For me, the only thing stopping me in becoming a full time author is ME.
I have no other barriers that I cannot get past if only I’m willing to put in the hard work that I am currently not.
I watch as other authors do put in the work and they often have far fewer resources and time and energy than me. And they release books quicker, they submit to agents sooner, they are scaling their careers way out of site, so far ahead of me.
Now, yes, I know comparison is the thief of joy. And I know we shouldn’t compare to others and our journey is our own, but I do have the odd glance at others, especially those in the same lane as me, and I look at them and think - ‘I could be there, or even so much further on, if only I had that person’s work ethic’.
And that’s what scares me the most. Getting to the end of this road, wherever it leads and being consumed with the regret of not fulfilling my potential, of not working to my full capacity, of not telling ALL of the stories that constantly vie for my attention in my 86 billion neurons.
Lets use some numbers to really illustrate this (be wary of my earlier point on quality and voice and also how these arbitrary numbers may not be suitable for your life/specific circumstances):
Author A writes 5000 words a month.
Author B writes 10,000 words a month.
Author A writes and submits their first book (it’s 60k, so let’s say 1 year). It gets an agent, it goes to auction and they get a five book deal for £150,000 (this also takes a year - yeah I know, I know! - but keeping the numbers easy rather than realistic for now). Over the next 5 years they struggle with consistency, and the pressure of the big book deal looms over them. Sure, they are talented - book 1 was evidence of this - it brought them the decent 5 book deal. But for all their talent, they start struggling and the word counts lower and lower.
They want to give up because they’ve not had the opportunity to build resilience when things get tough. They’ve not had to write multiple books in short time frames up against pressure and expectation and for all their talent, they lack discipline. When motivation begins to run dry, they ask for extension after extension.
Eventually they submit a 2nd book, but it’s not got the heart of book 1. They also submit a book 3 and it’s a little better but it’s taken 4 years, so the momentum of that great book 1 has subsided. Book 3 is released but with little marketing to follow.
The author has a 5 book deal but doesn’t have the spirit, or the tools, to write the other 2 books in their deal. They feel trapped and hate the process. They eventually give up.
Author B writes and submits their first book (it’s 60k, so 6 months). It gets rejected.
Author B writes and submits their first book (it’s 60k, so 6 months). It gets rejected.
Author B writes and submits their first book (it’s 60k, so 6 months). It gets rejected.
Author B writes and submits their first book (it’s 60k, so 6 months). It gets rejected.
2 years have passed and they look over at author A and may be forgiven for thinking that author A is so much farther on than them, but in reality they’ve written 4 books. Author A, for all their talent and book deal, have struggled to write their second book in this time.
Author B gets back to work, and writes another book (book 5) around the same time author A sends book 2 to their editors.
Author B writes and submits their first 5th (we’re now 2.5 years after we started this story). It gets accepted. A miserly 1 book deal.
Now because author B has developed resilience and has a process that has hard work at the foundations, they rely less on talent and other whimsical things.
They get to work and write another book, which is also accepted. A small increase in advance for this one, let’s say up to £10k now.
At the same time, author A is still working on that 3rd book.
Author B finishes and gets accepted for another book. That’s the 7th they’ve written in this time frame, and 3rd to be published.
Author A also has their 3rd published about the same time.
Author B has a 4th book accepted for publication, and due to the rapid release structure and the momentum built from previous books, they’re selling well and advances are rising.
Author A has now lost heart and given up.
Author B has got an advance for £100k for their next book.
These 2 paths are on completely different trajectories - at the start you all wanted to be author A. Who wants rejection after rejection like we saw with author B.
5 years down the line, author B’s career is on the rise. The compound interest of hard work over talent means they’ve now outstripped author A, both in terms of output, of career momentum, of money and MOST importantly, they are still there, still writing, still telling their stories.
Author A peaked early (talent) but didn’t capitalise on that (due to a lack of process, not just hard work, and discipline).
Now this is just a made up scenario and I acknowledge how many MORE variables there are in this gig - I am a scientist after all, and I appreciate that correlation does not equal causation.
It’s not JUST about hard work, discipline, process etc but all my own lived experience tells me that those 3 things will ALWAYS trump talent when it comes to a writing career.
So, while still being kind to ourself, let’s spend this week reevaluating how hard we’re really working - are we doing all we can?
If so, great, keep at it - I’m proud of you.
If, like me, you’re not - let’s put in place so systems to promote consistency, discipline and make this process a repeatable one. One we can scale once we get the hang of it. One that readers will also value because they will get books every (insert working pace here) on a consistent basis from their favourite author.
We can’t all be SF Said and write beautiful stories and be so, so, talented but release one a decade. That model won’t work for 99.9% of us.
And here’s some more numbers to finish off on a slightly lighter, more inspirational note, because ultimately both authors A and B are doing amazing, despite my classless comparison.
Less than 1% of people begin writing a novel.
Out of 97% of people who begin writing a novel: 30 out of 1000 go on to finish it.
Only 6 out of those 30 go on to see their novel published.
If you’re in any of the above groups, well done - you’re doing AMAZING!
If you’re reading this newsletter every week, you’re already so many steps ahead of others.
If you take on board the various letters that are written here and try to improve your craft and process and mindset - you’re already a WINNER.
Keep winning folks, keep writing and never give in to the doubting voices in your head. Those are the ones who should be silenced, not your story’s voices. The world needs to hear those.
Writing can be lonely, but it doesn’t need to be
May the Force be with you!
Stuart, Florianne, Melissa and Emily