Amazing results from the Author Mentorship Program Participants!

After COVID hit in March 2020, I quickly learned how to put my Author Mentorship Program online. Up until then I had been helping writers become authors for many years, but always in person.

It was a bit of a scary proposition to figure out how to structure what had been a more intuitive process for at least a decade into structured lessons.

Well, I totally stretched myself doing it, learned a ton, and am very happy with the outcome. Why? Because the results speak for themselves!

Listen here to what my students, soon to be authors, shared about their book-writing experience on Week 8 of our 10-week program.

If you are considering writing your book, applications for new participants are now open for my next Author Mentorship Program. The start date will be announced soon. Learn more about the Your Life Matters! Author Mentorship Program.

Junie is also currently offering one-on-one author mentorship writing programs. Book a complimentary discovery call with Junie today to learn more!

A few quotes from the recording participants:

“I knew that I had a story that I wanted to share, but I really had no idea what direction truly it was going into. So I definitely feel more aware as a writer.  And I’ve noticed that as I’ve continued to write, writing’s become even more enjoyable for me than what it was before it was a task. But now I’m excited to sit down and write about all of the pieces, all of the stories that have compiled up over the years to put me together. I now find that my writing has helped me communicate clearly I don’t flower things and I’m more precise, so it’s been pretty remarkable to me to see and understand just every exercise if it’s journaling or if it’s sitting down and writing pieces to this project, it’s definitely bled into how I communicate as a whole, as a person.”

How do you feel about the lesson format?

“We needed a catalyst, and then an anchor. Something to get us going, but also something to anchor us. So that’s been really critical for me. And also I find the lessons are giving me focus also given me determination to get it done. I was stuck a couple of times, and Nan helped me, my super writing buddy, and Junie, you also got me over that bump. So now I feel an urgency. I want to get it done I am excited and want to go to the computer and write it down and get it all out.”

“I feel well supported to listen inside myself. To listen and let go. So it’s like before it was all in there, but it wasn’t released, it wasn’t liberated. It feels like now I have permission to let it flow out onto the page. And I feel eager to make the time to sit and channel. Because that’s what it feels like is, is channeling, research, and uncovering. The strange thing is that I don’t even think this is my book! This was just something I had to do. My book is something totally different, but I had to do this. To research family, to get my mother who’s 97 and losing her memory to remember. I can’t ask her, “Do you remember,” because that upsets her. But I can say to her, what kind of a car did you have in 1925?”

What is it like to have a writing prompt?

“Having a writing prompt for me is like, it’s just like getting on a horse and riding free. I just love it. So if I structure my writing around that kind of prompt motivation, then I could each one of these chapters that then has three sub themes becomes like a series of things to write into not changed dramatically from when we began, because I really had no sense of direction.

What stayed the same is my kind of immutable resistance to like sitting and writing regularly. As I’m writing, I get the answer and the answer is that I’m much better. My whole life I’m much better doing things like a task or a project or an exploration in community. Here we are, this is a community right here. We’re a tribe of writers. I am less inspired or engaged or motivated when it’s a solo enterprise, a bit of a singer, but I’m much better when I’m singing with others as a musician, I’m much better when I’m playing with others.”

What has writing done for you?

“I’ve always kind of felt like an orphan. I mean, I have a mom and a dad and everything, but I never felt connected to my history because I never knew much about it. And the books that I’m writing is about my grandfather, my father, me, and then as it turns out great great-grandfather and yeah, and beyond probably so one of the benefits or unexpected consequences of all, this has been a deep, deep feeling of at least on my dad’s side of the family, a connectedness. Because I’m writing my grandfather and my dad’s story, I’m not incidental. And that’s where I’m at right now is trying to put myself into the story. But it’s this deep feeling of not being an orphaned anymore. I know that sounds really weird, but I, I always felt that way . . .

What is your rationale and main reason to be one of the participants of the program?

I have to be able to put myself into this story because it wouldn’t be happening without me. That’s where I’m at right now, really deeply look at without being shy and minimizing my part in it. To be able to speak about my role in all of this and the truth seeker that I am and how that’s a part of my DNA and always has been, and always will be. And it takes me to places that other people don’t want to go. So, those are all wonderful things to have discovered. I thank all of you for your courage and just being here along with this journey.

Thank you Junie, because these are life changing things that have happened for me. I know for my father, he’s forgiven his dad at the age of 89 years old and he’s cracked open. Like you wouldn’t believe. So it’s been incredible and there’s more to come.”

How do you feel now that you have successfully completed the Author Mentorship Program?

“I originally thought it was about the book, the whole thing I’ve got to get the book, got to get the book and what it really is. It’s about becoming whole, bringing myself whole and being able to write from the most empowered space of my heart. Be authentic place of who I am. And yes, the journey is not easy. I can tell you that then going through a really big, deep, deep wounded now, or deepest part of me that I’ve never addressed.

And you know, I look back to when I first started with Junie, it would have been, there’s no way I would’ve been able to write the authentic piece.

I’m going to write and share it with the world, from that place of when I started in 2018 and I see now it really will be the most empowered place of who I am. That’s what I believe she does so brilliantly. She moves us through our wounds are helping us to unfold what her wounds are and bringing those fractured pieces home from whatever side that we’re at, whatever lens we want to come from and being able to be there. And that’s the part that’s where they’re going to resonate with the reader, I believe.”