Earlier this year, I decided to hire a writing coach.

My decision came after a year of working on my book alone. A year of filling notebooks with scenes and anecdotes. Of making no real progress. I was tired of trying to figure it all out on my own, so I went looking for someone who could help me get a manuscript written.

After some Googling and asking around, I found a coach who seemed like the right fit. She was friendly, engaging and professional – a twenty-year veteran of the publishing industry with a string of published clients who say she’s amazing. After an initial consultation, I got a good feeling. I signed up to work with her for two months.

Things started well.

First, she told me to draw up a book structure. I did, and it got a big thumbs up. Then I wrote my first two chapters and sent them to her for review. I anxiously waited for her feedback, not sure if what I’d written was any good. I needn’t have been worried.

‘Your story is compelling and well told,’ she replied. I relaxed, overcome with relief. I got straight back to writing, producing a mind-boggling two chapters, or 10,000 words, per week. Her positive reviews kept coming, peppered with some minor queries and suggestions.

‘This is a solid draft,’ my coach told me about a third of the way in. She assured me that my manuscript would require only one round of minor revisions before it was ready for publication.

I was thrilled. After a year of doodling in notebooks I was finally making progress. When we hit the halfway mark, and my coach asked if I wanted to keep going, I gave her a big thumbs up. I could see the finish line now and I didn’t want to stop.

Which may explain why I ignored a few red flags.

The main one concerned my story, which was turning out to be more of a travelogue than a memoir – a chronological account of what I did and saw with no real storyline. I began to wonder if perhaps I hadn’t thought this book structure through enough. When I raised my concerns with my writing coach, she told me not to worry.

‘Your book can be both a travelogue and a memoir’, she told me. According to her, all I had to do was insert a few pages here and there telling the reader how I was feeling, and I’d have myself a memoir.

I wasn’t entirely convinced. But after a year of working on my own and getting nowhere, I figured I should keep an open mind. Did I also mention how thrilled I was to see the finish line?

The closer I got to the end, the more wildly those red flags began flapping in my face. My story had no narrative arc. No character development. No tension to resolve. No ah-ha moment to get my readers fist-pumping into the air. I started wondering what I’d paid my writing coach thousands of dollars for.

When I finished the draft, I sent it to a friend to read, just to be sure I wasn’t being too self-critical. When her feedback arrived, my heart sank. ‘Sorry to sound harsh,’ she wrote. ‘I’m only reading this because you’re a dear friend.’

Things didn’t end well with my writing coach.

She was fine when I told her I was cutting our time short because I needed to go find someone else to help me get a handle on my book. She wasn’t so fine when I asked for a partial refund. All of a sudden her tone changed from ‘I just want you to be satisfied’ to ‘I fulfilled the terms of the contract.’

For a while I felt terrible – mad at myself for wasting money, upset at how our relationship had ended, and disheartened by the thought of starting my book again from scratch. I took some time off to lick my wounds and come up with a new plan.

I also reflected on what had happened and what I’d learned from the experience. Some of the lessons were so obvious I kicked myself for not realising them sooner.

For a start, I should have chosen a writing coach who specialises in memoir.

When I’d asked my writing coach about her experience with memoir, she told me she’d worked on several ‘memoir-like’ books. I realise now that that wasn’t good enough. I should have chosen someone who knows the genre inside out.

Before I agreed to work with her, I should have read her clients’ books. Instead of just taking her word for it (and theirs too) I should have checked out their final products and judged for myself.

And I should have chosen a coach who publishes with major publishing companies and whose clients do too. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve read some good self-published books. But most self-published books out there wouldn’t make it past a publishing company’s slush pile. Which possibly explains why my coach, whose clients mostly self-publish, let me get away with mediocre.

A few months after the bust up, I enrolled in a writing class – an introduction to memoir with a teacher who satisfied all of my new criteria. It was time to go back to basics, I decided. To stop trying to rush to the finish line. To slow down and learn my craft.

This time, I wasn’t disappointed. I found a teacher who challenges her students to see past the particularities of their lives; to tell a universal story that others will want to read. I’ll write more about that in a future post.

By no means was my first coaching experience a complete waste of time and money. Like most relationships that go sour, there were good bits too.

I’d wanted someone to help me get a manuscript written and that’s precisely what I got. I have a first draft, which is a start. Finally, a score on the board.

Even though I won’t use much of it, my first draft is far from useless. Sometimes you have to try the things that don’t work to find the things that do. I gained a whole lot of clarity and it will show in the second draft.

I came out of this experience with a strong sense of certainty too. After I picked myself up and dusted myself off, I asked myself a question.

Do I want to keep doing this? Do I want to keep writing a book that has already taken longer than I expected it to and may take years more?

The answer came easily.

Yes.