WoMentoring by a fearless worrier
Hello. Sorry I’ve been away (do I start every post that way? (Yes)). I’ve been setting up this thing. This WoMentoring Project thing. Some of you might have heard about it, or applied for it, or maybe you’re one of the amazing women who has given up their time to mentor somebody.
It all began on Burn’s Night in January about four nights before moving to Budapest. I’d had a tea with a young female writer who wanted some advice and took to Twitter to ask for advice on where she might go next. The answer was that there weren’t many places for her to go and those that did exist were largely eye-wateringly expensive. It also so happened that a few weeks before I’d read some articles on gender bias in publishing (women being paid and reviewed less than male writers in a endless self-perpetuating circle) and had got fucking angry about it.
These two thoughts entwined: something accessible for writers starting out and something to address the gender-bias bullshit. So I took to Twitter and asked, mostly out of curiosity, which women would donate time to mentor a young female writer. As I put on my dress to go out that evening, as I applied mascara and tamed my (always mad) hair the offers of mentoring flooded in.
And so I went off to Wiltons Music Hall full of the milk of human kindness - which was soon replaced my the milk of the Guinness tap - listened to some beautiful folk music and thought no more about it. Until the morning. Then I scrolled through the tweets and saw what I’d been offered…so much generosity and from women at the very (very) top of their game…women who ran literary agencies, noted debuts, best-sellers, Editorial Directors…a veritable whose-who of the literary world. And then? Then I reigned in my hangover and started thinking about making it real.
Some of you know me. Most of you don’t. That’s not a typo it in the title: fearless worrier is about right. My friends often describe me as fearless. It is true when I want to do something I pretty much just do it (it’s how I’ve found myself in Budapest, how I came to write my first novel in Vietnam, travelled across Russia to write research my second). And when things stop making me happy I simply don’t do them anymore (it’s how I walked out of my day job last year to go full-time as a writer).
And I wanted to set this up. Selfishly, as a working-class writer I want more people from my sort of background to have a voice - or at least the change of being heard if they’re good enough. As a woman I want to put two-fingers up to those who think women’s work is in any way ‘lesser’ by dint of (most of) us having a vagina. And so that fearless part took over and I decided to Just Fucking Do It.
But, oh, I am worrier too. I’m a terrible, terrible worrier. A trait handed down generation to generation from other women in the family (who had a damn sight more to worry about that me). And so…along with the fearlessness comes the worry hand in hand. Kerry Hudson: chatterbox and fearless worrier.
To be honest when I started I thought this wouldn’t be a big project. I saw it largely my introducing one set of women to another set of women. Lots of the mentors were my pals…I saw it as no more than email introductions. Which is in fact what it is at core - my introducing women to each other. Very simple. Very grassroots.
But then it needed a website. So I built one while eating Pombears, drinking Diet Coke mostly in pajamas. Then suddenly we had over seventy mentors who I needed to collect information from and keep informed about everything. Then I realised women would need to know about the opportunity. And slowly, slowly it became bigger and bigger.
During the eight weeks of set-up (I needed settling in/drinking time with new friends in Budapest) the fearless side of me kept saying (mostly when it was 2am and I was pulling my hair out over Wordpress) ‘no biggie, just do it, what’s the worst that can happen? Get yer arse in gear’
And my worrying side (which sounds like Kermit the Frog) kept saying ‘what if the website doesn’t work? What if the mentors think you’re doing a poor job of coordinating? What if no one applies? What if you look stupid for even trying this?’
What can you do? The only thing you can do is listen a little to both voices while knowing neither is entirely accurate. And so I kept on keeping on.
It launched on Tuesday. I sat down at my computer at 9am and literally didn’t get up from my desk until 1pm when I made a cup tea. On our first day we had a staggering 28,500 page views (and 49,887 to date). Almost a week later the applications are flooding in. The website works (hallelujah) the processes work (double hallelujah). We’ve new amazing mentors signing up every day and will have mentions in this week’s Bookseller and the next The Writer magazine.
So that’s it really, that’s what I’ve been doing. Listening just enough to my fearlessness and to my worries get things both in motion and done properly.
Huge thank yous go to our amazing mentors, PR support from Lisa Devaney, illustration from Sally Jane Thompson and all of the people who blogged and tweeted on our behalf all week…it has been so, so appreciated.
So, here’s to an amazing twelve months to come!
If you want to know more about the WoMentoring Project go here
Got questions go here
Apply go here
