A month later as a writing coach, and A LOT has been learned.
I never thought I would have signed up to be a writing coach when I sometimes doubt my own capacity of writing. For most of my life, I have been told my writing was repetitive. It was too short and too shallow, with a lack of depth. Then I was told I'd go on tangents and would get off-topic. And now, I still suck at dialogue tags and am a worldbuilding disaster.
But I've queried for two novels before. The query trenches are brutal more to your heart than to the work you've created because that is permanent and it is real, staying with you forever. How to heal and get un-stuck from your writing than by becoming a coach?
I've known the founder of The Authors of Tomorrow via Instagram where I follow her path and her writing journey and when the season of CoachHunt popped up, I thought I'd give it a try to pitch myself as a writing coach. I got accepted. And once the pitching event happened, it was crazy reading over 100 google forms and about 60+ twitter pitches in search of expressing interest to get 3 mentees.
But well, I'm becoming a teacher. And my multitasking brain loves helping lots of people and working on different things and I thought it'd be nice to get practice mentoring more than 3 people.
Also, I'm really bad at decision making and making up my mind on certain things like this.
So.... 10 mentees later, I get a plethora of different genres and writing styles with different strengths and weaknesses. I get to relish in the chaos of the good ideas and in polishing my mentoring/teaching/editing/motivational skills and learn along the way. It turns out that being a writing coach allows me to put my analytical eye to good use to spot typos and express ways to improve the stories being told. It's a fascinating experience and a refreshing change to my life as I understand better how to help people tell the stories they itch to tell and hope their stories will be read by many others.
Here's a recap of my mentees and their paths:
I have a story that challenges the core of life and death. It is an emotional rollercoaster and a story that pulled me in since the start. I usually avoid books that will make me cry because I'm already a sensitive reader and will cry easily at sad parts. Death, in itself definitely still unsettles me despite taking a class, but this mentee despite being slightly older than me, has been really fun to work with and her storytelling while direct and straightforward, will also pack some punches and deliver really emotional moments that lead to a very invested coach.
I have a historical fiction novel focused on the WWII era and a girl, Rose who teams up with a spy in looking for a famous radiocaster. While I'm relatively new to writing in the historical fiction genre, it has allowed me to learn the importance of research. He was one of the few who I've gotten to know a bit better and we challenged our time zones for a zoom call!
I get to dabble in the realm of fantasy with their novel that features a diverse cast of characters and who is quite skilled in the establishing of a world that I know readers will love. This mentee was also one of the ones to thank me for being such wonderful support with them and I hold that moment close to my heart.
I dabble in the first love of science fiction with a space opera and a heart-wrenching story with a mentee who is left handed and loves cats as I do!
I also get to experiment with a rom-com that reminded me of The Summer I turned pretty vibes and she was also the first mentee I was interested in coaching, so hearing her yes made my day!
When a murder goes wrong, four assassins are trying to claim victory and the reward, but who truly killed Isamu Sato and will they be able to play nice or kill each other for the greatest prize? It's basically the spy drama we all need to see come to life, with such a catchy title Steal The Kill (Like, need I say more?)
With a virus attacking the world, we have a scientist who pairs up with an assassin to find a cure all while being blinded by the true enemy hidden in plain sight where love might be the biggest poison of them all.
Time travelling to the 80's for our MC who has to spy on the son of one of the most important figures in the US... while trying not to fall in love and risk it all.
What do you do if there is a significant plot hole in your history books? This is the question we grapple with the most enigmatic idea I have seen by far, definitely ready to do a whole DOCTOR STRANGE on me.
HUGE Six of crow vibes in which six people are entangled in a heist with a murder that turns their lives upside down and the time to fulfill their duties is running out, with only one choice-- succeed at any cost to survive.
In a month (and a few days!) I have been able to see the strengths and weaknesses of each of their writing styles, as well as getting to know each of them a little bit better and I have gotten close with a few of them, really grateful for the chance to be able to help their stories grow. I have gotten to polish my own analytical eye to see places where these writers can improve as well as look at my own writing and see it through a different lens that allows me to do better in my own work. And it has definitely helped me in my own creative work to keep writing like they do.
And that's the rewarding nature of it. I didn't do any fancy training to be a writing coach, but I have the experience of writing stories, of telling them and stumbling over the things that I struggle and I'm studying to become a teacher, one that will focus on reading and writing and everything in between. It's been a crazy month to say the least and I've made more progress in some mentees' work over the others, but I am happy to say that all ten of these stories being created are all of my interest and they're all the type of ideas that will one day be seen by everyone else.
Stay tuned for more writing coach rants as we get closer to November!
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