Do you have people who believe in you?

My latest blog for Workingmums.co.uk Confessions Of A Professional Lion Tamer has just gone out and this week it’s all about How to get published: believe in yourself and find a mentor who believes in you too.

The inspiration for it was a chat on Facebook last night with Paul Magrs a wonderful author who ran the UEA Creative Writing undergraduate and MA courses while I was there.

In his blog Life on Magrs I was totally thrilled to be mentioned as one of his favourite writing students. Paul’s support has made such a difference in my growth and development as a writer and think it’s wonderful that he is now doing fiction coaching to help aspiring writers.

Apart from my mum and Takbir my husband there has been another person who has been there in my writing journey since UEA and that is my best friend Mark Beyer-Kay. Mark was on the creative writing course with me, he got much better grades than me and he was there with me and Tak when Paul introduced us to my Literary Agent, Piers Blofeld.  Mark is a wonderful writer (at UEA Paul called us the Camp writers of the class and how proud were we of that).  Mark has always been there to read my work, encourage me, celebrate with me, and is one of the few people I can trust with my secrets.

I was reminded of Mark who is an inspiring and exceptionally talented teacher when I was listening to Maya Angelou on Radio 4 a few weeks ago. She said, ‘I’d always thought of myself as a writer who could teach…I have found that I’m not a writer who can teach, I really am a teacher who can write.’

However, you see yourself Mark. I love you. I believe in you. You are a teacher, a writer, the godfather to our precious girl and my best friend.

Ax