There are some truly wonderful people in this world. I had the opportunity to meet with one a few days ago. This lady is a published author of 40 years standing, an English lecturer - I think you get my drift about the kind of qualifications this lady has in the area of writing. Well, the point of all this is that, with all of this going for her, she offered to mentor me - for free!

Ja well no fine, as the saying goes. I was all excited about it when she offered this when I met her in Feb. With one thing and another on her side and on mine, the opportunity for the meeting only came came this last Friday. She had had my manuscript for a few weeks, to read it and do what she felt fit. I simply put it from my mind (actually, I was coughing so violently, there was little chance for anything to remain in it no matter how much it tried to hold on. Poor brain - yet another assault on it.)

Then came the e-mail (pause - dramatic music) Sally, I think we could meet this week.

Oh, that'll be wonderful. Would Friday work for you?

Yes, Friday would be fine. Come at one and we can have some lunch, and then get to work.

Great, I'll see you on Friday.

The week passed, and with each passing day, I came to an increasing realisation of what I was facing. Let me just give you a little flashback in life here:

We are in the early 1980's. I am facing exams. Which exam? Pick one, any one - medicine, surgery, paeds, obs, gynae, whatever - I hated them all. There wasn't an exam that I enjoyed. Exams and I were bad company. And what was the worst part of exams? They were all ORALS and CLINICALS. Performing in front of people was always my worst nightmare. My brain goes into freeze-mode (I-am-frozen-I-can-no-longer-think-please-do-not-ask-me-my-name-definitely-do-not-ask-me-the-underlying-biochemical-reaction-argh-argh-argh-ddying)

Right, so perhaps you might be starting to get a little bit of the picture of what was starting to happen inside me. Of course, This isn't happening to me, I'm fine, I'm not going to have a panic attack about this, This is NOT an oral exam.

Fine? Fine.

But, she's going to rip it to shreds! That's what professional people are meant to do to manuscripts (MS as the professionals refer to them. I will now do that - mainly because it's shorter). She's going to shred my 80 000 word baby. I don't know if I can do this. Oh, this is so hard.

I stop on the way to get a melktert and apple juice to contribute to lunch, and then take a leisurely drive out to Somerset West. Don't know where I'm going, so I've got to leave lots of puncture time. I get there an hour early, which doesn't suit her, so I go off to look at an historic old farm down the road.

I'm back. We chat. We have a leisurely lunch in the garden. We chat about our children. Time is passing, and I'm anticipating the MS-ripping. It's chilly in the garden, but I don't think that's the major reason I'm shivering.

Finally, she starts edging gently into the subject of books and publishing, and what a bad market it is now. Youngsters read less and less, and what they do read - is in competition with TV, the Internet, X-Box, i-Pod, etc, etc, etc. Therefore, the writing has to be different. Snappy, quick, action-filled. No time to describe anything, to build a scene, hardly time to build a character.

Are you feeling breathless? So was I. Then she said: I want you to cut a third out of your book. See, I told you.

That being said, she then sat with me with my MS. She had read the whole thing, and then gone back over the first 9 chapters with a red pen. I haven't seen a red pen all over work of mine since I was in school. Whoa! She was really professional. Once I over my initial mental "Oh my hat! A third - I've got to cut out a third? She's got to be on something." I was able to listen with an open mind and heart.

She knows what she's talking about. She didn't need to take all that time for me, not only to read my MS, but to give me very sound advice.

So you see. Full circle. There are wonderful people in this world. Because of this one, I have a whole lot of work ahead of me. Oh, incidentally, she did say that she does really like my book and would really like to see it published.

Pam Cerff gave me a lovely quote this morning, by Dorothy Parker:
"If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favour you can do them is to present them with copies of 'The Elements of Style'. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy."

Seeing as nobody obliged me with the first greatest favour, I shall have to see if the library has a copy of 'The Elements of Style', to do myself the second greatest favour.

On that happy thought, I bid thee farewell, gentle folks.