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How not to stay in your lane

Diversifying your workload and creative practice

  • ONLINE VIA ZOOM

Building a sustainable writing career is one of the biggest challenges an author will face, especially when you only have so much time available to dedicate to your practice and achieve your goals. Where should you be investing your time and energy to reach your long-term vision, and how to establish the legacy you want to leave behind with your body of work? 

With the benefit of hindsight, novelist and newspaper columnist Melanie La’Brooy recognises the divergent paths her creative practice has taken over the last 20 years and the effort it takes to build the author career you actually want. Melanie will join the ASA’s Professional Development and Events Manager, Kate Adams, in conversation to explore how you can identify your goals and your approach, and why you shouldn’t necessarily stay in your allotted lane.

Melanie will share:

  • The advantages and disadvantages of changing up your approach and varying your creative practice
  • How to balance your business and creative sides, the flexibility required to juggle different work streams, and what you can do if social media simply isn’t your thing
  • How to stick to what you're authentically passionate about and let the bandwagons pass you by
  • The challenges of genre and market hopping, and how to connect the dots between your seemingly disparate interests and skills
  • How to maintain realistic expectations about the publishing industry and bounce back from rejection and failure

If you want to learn what’s involved when you change direction or explore new territory with your professional writing and creative practice, and why it’s worth your while to think in the long-term instead of the short-term, this one-hour discussion will help you determine how you could best juggle a diverse workload and pursue exciting new avenues with your career.

There will be time for questions from the audience.

Who is this for?

  • Emerging authors seeking guidance on how to build a sustainable, long-term writing career
  • Mid-career authors considering what they could do to change things up or hustle for more work in a new area
  • Any author contemplating their career goals and the legacy they’d like to leave behind with their body of work

About the presenter

Melanie La’Brooy
Melanie La’Brooy
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Can't make it to the live session?

No problem! Everyone booked in to this event will be emailed a link and passcode to access the recording afterwards. This recording will be available to view for 10 days after the live session. This also means that if you wish to revisit the session after attending it live to take further notes, you can do so!

After 10 days, the link will expire and the recording will no longer be available to view.