A budding fiction writer is undergoing a career change following a chance meeting.
Peter attended the Batemans Bay Writers Workshop hoping to polish his in-progress novel Tears of the Rain to a publishable level.
But reality hit to a brutal level when his novel was destroyed in the team critique groups, with Tears described as “Cliched”, “Boring”, “Too sentimental” and “A story with one-dimensional caricatures and a ‘who cares’ plot that goes nowhere.”
Feeling disheartened, Peter left the three-day workshop (running from Friday night to Sunday night) on Saturday afternoon, vowing to delete all copies of Tears when he got home, delete all his fiction writing podcasts, cancel his local writers’ membership, and promising never to write fiction again.
Too sad to go straight home, Peter popped into a local pub to drown his sorrows with beer and Saturday night rugby league.
It was there he met Barney, who was attending a copywriters convention on the same weekend.
Initially not interested in talking about writing, Peter eventually opened up when the footy game became a walkover.
After hearing about the nightmare workshop, Barney began telling Peter about his copywriting business, and asked to see a copy of his novel.
Reluctantly (but numb to criticism at this point), Peter showed Barney and was surprised by his reaction. While Barney agreed the story was horrible, he saw that Peter’s basic writing abilities were sound. That’s when the real business started.
On Tuesday, Peter will start part-time at Barney’s copywriting company (inbetween his actual day job), starting with simple writing tasks while he learns the ropes of copywriting.
Peter was shocked by the surprise opportunity. “I was all ready to give up writing forever, but Barney saw something in me and – for some reason – decided to give me a shot. Maybe he felt sorry for me after a few too many beers, but I’ll start on Tuesday and learn as much as I can from him. You never know, it might work out.”
