{"id":12576,"date":"2018-06-12T08:25:14","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T22:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=12576"},"modified":"2018-06-10T14:20:19","modified_gmt":"2018-06-10T04:20:19","slug":"how-opportunity-knocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/how-opportunity-knocks\/","title":{"rendered":"How Opportunity Knocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Opportunity can be a funny old creature. It often hides in the shadows out of reach or lurks where you least expect to find it. It can disguise itself as a closed door or sheer cliff-face drop destined to destroy you. It can seem to offer itself to everyone else except you, then laugh at you with them behind your back.<\/p>\n

At the same time, if you risk those shadows or that cliff-face, if you pause to peer closer at that closed door, and the gold glimmering under its black paintwork, it can give you exactly what you want or need.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Last month I had my 8-year Twitter<\/a> anniversary. Last November I had my 10-year Facebook<\/a> anniversary. I love social media! In fact, I wish I had more time to spend chatting on there. My new favourite is Instagram<\/a>. I first got online when I was a recently-immigrated stay-at-home mum of two children under two, trying to find my way in a country where I had no friends or family who could help me through the tough times, and I simply needed to talk to people. It was a lifeline. Not only could I connect with real live adults, but I found story-loving tribes who wanted to talk about stories. Amazing!<\/p>\n

Once the kids were old enough, I joined a face-to-face writing group and, on discovering my love of social media, they asked me to teach them about it \u2013 and they\u2019d pay me! I had cut down on my work as a freelance editor and copywriter to have children, working only from home while the kids had their day-naps and then at weekends, so it had been years since I\u2019d prepared or given a presentation. I was petrified!<\/p>\n

My husband helped with my nerves. \u201cDo you know more than those listening, Zena?\u201d he asked me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I think so. Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019ve got nothing to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I prepared my talk, gave it and got paid.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then another group asked me. Then another. It wasn\u2019t exactly what I wanted to get known for among writers, as all throughout this time I was also writing creatively and trying to sell and promote my stories. But you never know where opportunity will lead you, so I kept going and ended up teaching social media regularly at Mosman Community College<\/a>, blogging and website-building too. I began to joke with students that I was part-cyber.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After a while, once I\u2019d won several writing competitions, the college then invited me to teach an introductory writing course. Yes, please! Naturally, I was nervous at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know more than those listening, Zena?\u201d my husband asked again.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everyone, but most, probably, yes. Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019ve got nothing to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was such a success I began offering all kinds of writing classes. Soon libraries, writing groups, schools and even retirement villages were all asking me to teach creative writing classes, so I did. Not only that, but my students wanted to know about my own writing \u2013 I could finally sell and promote my stories! That\u2019s what I\u2019d wanted all along! And then, when my debut novel came out last year (Towards White<\/em>, IFWG<\/a>), I already had an established readership and fans.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Opportunity can indeed be a surprising creature. I now teach so many classes (check them out here<\/a> if you\u2019re interested) that I also mentor writers and tutor primary and high school students, judge writing competitions, and help publishers and authors publish print books and ebooks (check out my creative support services<\/a>!). All of which pays well enough for me to still work from home, so I get time each day to write too. All from getting on social media.<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m sure if I were to analyse it more closely, there would be way more to my lifestyle than grabbing opportunities as they arise. But still, it\u2019s helped.<\/p>\n

Do you welcome opportunities when you find them, or look away because they\u2019re not exactly what you want?<\/p>\n

\"\"Did you know<\/strong>: you can get an idea of how much time you spend on social media on your phone? If you go into your phone\u2019s \u2018Settings\u2019 and go to \u2018Battery\u2019, there\u2019s often a usage table showing you which applications you use the most.<\/p>\n

Did you know<\/strong>: if you turn off ‘locked-screen notifications’ on your phone it won\u2019t bleep and distract you while working or, most importantly, writing. I often leave my phone in another part of the house too, so it takes effort to unlock that screen!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you for connecting with me on social media \u2013 here on my blog, on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Pinterest<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a> or anywhere else where our social paths cross!<\/p>\n

\"\"

Thanks for connect on my blog!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

And Facebook and everywhere!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opportunity can be a funny old creature. It often hides in the shadows out of reach or lurks where you least expect to find it. It can disguise itself as a closed door or sheer cliff-face drop destined to destroy you. It can seem to offer itself to everyone else\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[206,1967,1964,433,1965,1957,579,1184,1966,674,1507],"class_list":["post-12576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writer-advice","tag-facebook","tag-immigrated","tag-instagram","tag-mosman-community-college","tag-nerves","tag-opportunity","tag-social-media","tag-stories","tag-story-loving","tag-twitter","tag-writing-group"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/door-1590024_960_720.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12576"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12608,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576\/revisions\/12608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}