I didn’t exactly have a blank page when I started the mentoring scheme.
I had about 60,000 words to go on to my projected 120,000 word first draft. (I know, too long, but I intend to lose 20,000 odd on the second draft)
It felt like a blank page though.
I have had individual chapters critiqued on a writers forum and a couple of friends have read parts of it (never trust what friends say about your writing), but sending the first 10,000 words out to my mentor felt nerve-wracking and exciting. Not as panic inducing as sending out a query to an agent, but not far off.
To go back to the start-
The book is called “Of Blood and lines”. It is about the nature of belief; the ability of human being to adapt their realities to what they believe in. It touches on addiction and abuse. It is about families and what they do to each other. It is also a little dig at the vampire obsession that seems to permeate everything at the moment.
My mentor is Tim Clare, an author, poet and journalist.
Serendipitously, the day I found out I had been accepted on the mentoring scheme, I was listening to the Book Slam podcast and he was reading from his novel.
This seemed to cement the process in my mind and galvanised me to start work.
