On Meeting My Mentor In Person

This morning I went to the Sarah's Sisters Cafe in Semaphore to meet with my poetry mentor, Dr Ray Tyndale, for the first time. I'd been told Ray was a lovely person, and I was completely thrilled to be able to confirm this! We seemed to get on extremely well, and covered lots of ground in this important initial meeting.


The project I will be working on with Ray is my memoir about my new disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS). That's the easy part. The tricky part is that I want to write my memoir in a combination of prose and verse. The verse part is why I wanted to be able to have Ray involved, to help me to get the verse right. I've written another blog post about this, celebrating my success in the grant application process, to pay for Ray to be my mentor.


Now that Ray and I have met, and chatted about what I want this memoir to be, it feels like this is really going to happen. I'm getting even more excited! I shared a little bit of this meeting I had with Ray this morning, with the people at the meeting I was at in the afternoon. This meeting was with a committee of people involved in the MS Society SA & NT. They were excited for me, and one lady asked when I would have this book out. I said, without hesitation, late next year. 


Was that brave, stupid or ridiculous? I think a bit brave, but also a bit truthful - I certainly feel like I can get this done in time, and have the book out in time for Christmas next year. It's going to be the perfect Chrissie present for someone you know who has MS! Every library should have a copy!


Now I have to write the first chapter before I next meet with Ray, and I'll find out her thoughts on the poetry I've given her to see what I've written in the past. I hope it goes well. If she has any thoughts on improvement, I feel sure I can trust Ray to be kind, but wise with it. This kind of relationship must be one built with trust.