Decent writing advice is like gold dust

Thousands upon thousands of terrific works of fiction have been published yet every fiction writer I’ve ever spoken to always feels like they’re working out how to do it from scratch themselves. For many writers, perhaps most, including those who have been published, one question keeps echoing back: am I on the right lines? Is this going anywhere?

Good creative writing classes and MAs can help to a certain extent but what all writers really want is quality one-to-one contact with an established writer in a similar field whose work they admire. In the UK, there is a scheme that can offer just that.

Gold Dust provides mentoring for fiction writers. It was founded by novelist Jill Dawson. I know Jill well. We were students together and she’s really a great writer – both novelist and poet. She’s put together an impressive panel of mentors for the scheme – distinguished novelists and recently some screen-writers too. They include two professors in creative writing and writers who have taught on MA courses at UEA, Birkbeck, Goldsmiths, Sheffield Hallam, Anglia Ruskin and Leicester de Montfort University. Many have been Royal Literary Fund Fellows.

Bottom line: it costs £2,000 for ten one hour sessions plus, of course, your mentor reading your work. In terms of contact time, this compares very well with the average MA and is considerably cheaper. Because limited places are available, application is competitive, and work is accepted ‘on the basis of the promise shown’.

There’s a website at www.gold-dust.org.uk which explains it all very simply. If you’re writing fiction and you need that little extra something that only experience can bring, it’s worth considering.

I don’t know whether Gold dust is for you or not but one thing I can guarantee knowing several of the people involved: it’s not a rip-off. You’ll get quality time from quality writers. (The sort who would never use a cliché like that!)