Mentoring

Recently, a woman I'd interviewed for an article e-mailed me, to ask if I'd be willing to mentor her. She'd wanted to be a writer, but didn't know where to begin. Her e-mail was the first step.

I was flattered, of course, that she'd asked me. I said yes.

We met and talked non-stop about writing. I offered several 'starter' ideas; among them were to faithfully write three pages every day, on anything. Julia Cameron, one of my favorite writers-on-writing, calls them Morning Pages. My mentee thought it was a worthy idea, and later e-mailed that she could only devote three or four mornings a week to them. It's a start, I encouraged her. Even three or four times a week is good. Morning Pages prime the pump, so to speak, open up the brain's highway to creativity. By starting the day with this pleasant habit, a writer can then move on to tackle other writing tasks. My mentee found this to be helpful in her other job-related writing.

While mentors help their proteges, they actually get 'paid' in an unexpected way, at least that's been my experience, so far. We have the opportunity to take a look at our own process as we share it. In doing that, we're improving our own art, and perhaps opening ourselves to niches, opportunities, we hadn't considered.