Being A Writing Mentor …

I’ve had a variety of people in my writing life who could be looked on as my ‘mentor’, two of them officially, others more informal mentors. These people have all helped in a variety of different ways.

And at the moment, I’m looking at the ins and outs of being a writing mentor for someone else, who asked me about taking on that role. I was glad to have been asked, and said yes. I feel I will be able to assist that writer in different ways, as I have to other people in the past

Now I’m thinking about the more practical aspects of taking on such a role. There is the question of how formal the mentor/mentee relationship might be, whether there needs to be any insurance, or other kinds of paperwork, and so on.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards informal, but with an agreement signed by us both … Insurance is a tricky thing, and expensive, if it is even possible to get it organised … I’ve done this role in an informal way in the past, but not for payment.

I’m looking forward to seeing what might come of the upcoming mentor position in the offing. Words will come of it, that is certain.

An Update On How Things Are Going

This mentor thing hasn’t begun as yet, we are still thinking about the how and what aspects, but we both definitely don’t want something formal. The mentee will share work, the mentor will give opinions. The mentor may also offer useful information about upcoming events, and perhaps ideas about possible publication options.

So basically, the update is that it is still a thing that will happen, but not quite yet. We were both at an event put on by my writing group on Sunday just past, and both felt it was an excellent event – a writing related workshop, and then a poetry reading.

I was able to give feedback about how I felt about a person in my mentee’s non-writing life who had said stupid and wrong things to them about their writing. My proposed mentee has definite talent with words, but a medical person told them they had no such talent.

Pretty well everybody at the event said that person was an idiot, and was wrong, and they have lots of talent!

But it has been postponed until after SA Writers Week, which my mentee is attending, but I am not, so nothing will happen until after that week is over. And if standing up for another writer is part of what a mentor is all about, I will gladly do that!

I have no idea why that person said what they said, which was that my mentee was delusional, if they thought their writing was any good, or something along those lines. It was an amazingly unhelpful thing to say, and ignorant, because this person is talented, for sure.

I will not be surprised if she produces a fine poetry collection, and gets it published, at the end of being mentored by me. I know things about the various processes involved in such things, and am more than happy to share my knowledge with other poets/writers.

The world is a big thing and there is always room for another book!