I’ll admit it: Most of this week’s Writing Monday has been conducted in the Dark Playground. I didn’t mean for it to happen (honest Guvnor) – indeed for the past hour I’ve done an impressive job of convincing myself that spending time updating my book list on Good Reads couldn’t possibly be a form of procrastination (since it would, in fact, be furthering my reading and therefore also the development of my writing-no?). But here I am at 4.16pm with a paltry 549 words of new fiction to my name, when today’s goal was (a perhaps unrealistic) 4,000 words of new fiction, one script edit and a completed application for the fabulous Womentoring Project.

On the plus side I have at least selected a mentor and researched her sufficiently to know she is the ‘one for me’ (in an entirely non-creepy way, I might add. Don’t want to put her off before she has even read my application). I won’t name her lest my application be unsuccessful (as will most likely be the case), but suffice to say she ticks many of my boxes and I’d be beyond delighted were she to pick me. I have visions of her leading me by the hand out of the Dark Playground and through the Dark Woods into the Happy Playground, where we would frolic with the other mentors and mentees, exchanging witticisms and writing-related banter as the publishers beat a path to our door.

But, back in the real world, I must accept this fantasy may not happen, which means the only person who can find the way out of this particular Dark Playground is me. So back to the application it is…