This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 19: Seven Reasons You Need A Writing Mentor.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And today I want to talk about something that I think gets overlooked a lot. When we talk about the how and why and wherefore of being a writer and of writing. Imagine with me a writer with a capital W. It can be a man or a woman, young or old, in the past, present or future. It can be yourself. It can be someone else, someone famous or someone not so famous. I think it’s safe to assume that everyone who’s imagining a writer right now is imagining someone different, but I will bet that they all have one thing in common. Whether your writer is sitting contemplative at a desk, out on a walk, drinking alone late at night in a darkened study, the writer you’re imagining may or may not be writing, but I would bet that the writer you’re imagining is most certainly alone.

There’s a very popular and very romanticized image of a writer as a person who is fundamentally alone. When we think of writers, we think of them in solitude. And perhaps we do this for a number of different reasons. Perhaps it’s because writers do tend to be a little bit more introverted. Perhaps we’ve cultivated a reputation for being devoted to our craft and therefore reclusive. I know that many writers cannot write unless they are alone, free from distraction, in silence and in direct communication with their muse, whatever that might be. Maybe it’s because writing is a place where I think a lot of us tend to do our processing, our mental processing, whether we journal or whether we simply use our writing as a way to externally process our thoughts and lives into the grander life of a story. If writing is a place where a lot of our thinking and processing takes place, it’s understandably difficult to let someone else in.

A lot of writers are simply not comfortable sharing what they’ve written and that’s fine. When you think of writers, when you think of Virginia Woolf or John Cheever or Ernest Hemingway, or even Snoopy from the Peanuts Cartoons sitting on top of his red dog house with his typewriter, writing about dark and stormy nights. It seems that everyone else in the entire world is shut out of the realm of these writers. They are quite fundamentally alone and other people are nothing more than a distraction, an interruption of the thread of genius. But you know what? You can’t do this alone and you’re not alone. Now I’m not going to tell you to go out on Friday nights to the club and lose yourself among the crowds. I’m not going to tell you to try sitting in a circle with your friends and everyone write together because chances are, you’re not going to be able to focus.

And yet when I say we can’t do this alone, I really mean it. When you decide that you’re a writer, you become part of a community of writers. You become a member of the society that has kept our culture immersed in the magic of stories that has existed for centuries and centuries. You are not alone. Now, I’m not saying that sometimes it’s not nice to be alone. I love having the house to myself. I love going to a coffee shop and realizing I’m the only person there. I love finding a quiet nook in a library where I can sit and read or write uninterrupted. And I love getting away from everything and just having some time purely to myself. I think that this is a basic human need, time for reflection, for processing, time to get away from screaming kids, or an unhappy spouse, or an office full of co-workers who have their own messy lives full of problems.

But a book never comes into existence alone by the efforts of one person. Very rarely does a book come along that prior to publication is only ever touched by one person. There is value in collaborating, whether it’s to have another pair of eyes look over your manuscript for spelling and grammar errors, whether it’s a discussion with the local fire chief about how the mechanics of a burning house actually work, whether it’s an interview with an old friend to try to recall a memory, whether it’s an argument with a loved one that sparks the passion to finally write what you’ve been feeling. We may prefer peace and revel in the quiet, but at the end of the day, we are social creatures. No matter how asocial you may feel at times, if you write with the intention of having anybody else read what you’ve written, then you’re accepting a part in a community.

Now all of this was never more true to me than when I discovered that I had a writing mentor, because I had been quite convinced that I could do it on my own. I’m the kind of person who hates to ask for help. I literally cannot open my mouth and say to someone, “Please help me,” or “I need help with something.” I can’t do it. There’s a catch in my throat, a twinge in my stomach that doesn’t let me admit that I need anyone else. So I said, “I’m going to write a book. I’m going to edit it myself. I’m going to design the cover art and I’m going to self-publish it. And no one else has to be involved.”

I think that to some degree, self-sufficiency is useful. And I live in America where you’re an individual and you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, whatever that means. And you take matters into your own hands and you act as your own hero. And you know what? That is a load of crap. I didn’t know what a load of crap it was until I discovered my own mentor.

Sometime ago, I was encouraged to join a local leadership program. It was to be carried out over a certain number of months. And there were different sessions, I suppose, that were led by a panel of local leaders and experts. This was a great opportunity. And for someone who’s not super big on networking, I met a bunch of really smart and cool and interesting people. I remember our very last session was about work-life balance, which you may or may not know is something that is of great interest to me.

And at the very end, there was a Q&A session. And my question was, “I’m a writer. And so I’m balancing not just work and life, but also writing my passion project. And after so much debate about how to balance work and life about how to decide how long your kids are going to stay at daycare and how many hours you’re going to work in a week and how much free time you’re comfortable scheduling for yourself and how important your career is to you. How do you wedge a third element in there?” This is of course, before I started this podcast and one of the reasons that I started this podcast, because I’m still intrigued by this question and each of the three panelists took a stab at answering this question. They gave very good answers because they were all very wise and thoughtful people. One person suggested that I take another look at my schedule and make sure that I was devoting time to each of those three realms, kind of similar to what I talked about in the last podcast episode number 18.

Another person suggested that I cut my hours at work back to part-time, which for me, was not super reasonable from a financial standpoint. But the third person, this third person, this beautiful woman dressed in hot pink with a platinum blonde pixie cut and perfect mascara, the type of person that I am not. At the time, I was wearing a very drab black business suit and I have brown hair that I’ve never dyed, full of gray streaks and I wear glasses and sensible shoes. This fun spunky lady had the courage to do something that nobody else did. And her response intrigued me just as much as this question still does. She said, “Oh, it’s not going to happen. You are going to spend the rest of your life balancing and rebalancing, gauging and regauging how everything fits. There is no way you can please everyone all the time.”

She said, “The fact is you’re constantly going to be cheating someone or something out of your time, and you have to choose who or what that is.” No one had ever been that honest about it before. Everyone on the panel was an immaculate professional. And they couldn’t admit that maybe they didn’t have this whole balance thing perfectly figured out yet, but she did. She said, “Sometimes all those plates you’re spinning, they are going to come crashing down.” And I said, “I like you. I like your honesty.” One of the best lessons that I learned during this leadership program was the practice of saying thank you, the practice of gratitude. The morning after this session, I wrote an email to the woman whose response had spoken to me so deeply who had surprised me with her honesty.

And I said, “Thank you for sharing what you shared. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for your courage and your willingness to be honest. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.” And I thought that it was over because often when I write people thank you notes, you don’t hear something back. It’s the bow that you tie on the package of experience, but this thank you was not the end. In fact was only, I don’t know, an hour maybe or an hour or two later when she wrote back this email, that once again was just very moving in its earnestness and its honesty. She wrote back, “Sarah, thank you for getting in touch with me. I’m a writer too. And when you asked your question, I felt such a kinship with you that I wanted to write back.” And so we exchanged emails and we started meeting for coffee and we became very fast friends.

When we met for coffee, which we still do once a month, we each bring a notebook and we have these lovely organic discussions about our struggles throughout the month, about writing, about publishing and about work, life and writing balance. She’s a writer. She owns her own business and she has a family and she is always so honest still. The funny thing is I didn’t realize that she was a mentor until quite some time after that. I simply thought that we were reciprocal friends who trusted each other and who weren’t afraid to be honest with each other. But I got into another situation with someone who was assigned to be my mentor and who was everything that Melissa, the woman that I’d been meeting with for coffee and talking about writing with was not. There are good and bad mentors. And whether mentorship arises from a friendship or a sort of assigned work situation or a leadership group, what have you, you’ll be able to tell. Just like with dating, you’ll be able to tell if it’s real or not, if you have a mutual accord and respect.

I’ve spoken for a while about my good mentor, Melissa. And so now, I’ll speak to you about the mentor who really wasn’t a mentor who was assigned to me and who I only met with a handful of times before, hopefully, tactfully, breaking things off. She was smart and it was important to her that I knew she was smart and smarter than me, which I’m okay with. She had several children that she loved very much and whom she wanted to talk about. And again, that’s fine. She kept forgetting my name, which is less fine and to her, I became Stephanie. All in all, I did not feel kinship of any kind with this person who checked her phone constantly, who couldn’t remember my name and who kept insisting that we were going to be the best of friends. So I’ve talked a little bit about how I found my mentor, but let’s back up.

Why would you even want a mentor in the first place? You’re doing fine. You’re balancing your job and your family and you’re writing as best you can. Meeting with a mentor is just one more thing to schedule. You don’t have time. I get it. But I would encourage you to make the time for these seven reasons.

Number one, a mentor is someone who’s been there, who knows what it takes and who can offer advice on how to proceed with something that you’re not sure about. This does not mean that your mentor has to be older than you. In fact, your mentor can be younger than you. Maybe you don’t even know how old your mentor is. That’s okay. What matters here is the empathy. What matters here is the relationship. What matters here is knowing that someone else has faced the same challenges that you’re facing. And they came out okay. Maybe they came out successful. Maybe they came out having made a mistake and learned a lesson, but they’ve been there and they can advise you about next steps or what not to do as you take the road to publishing or to self-publishing. They might know how to get speaking gigs for you or really what your next steps should be when you’re stuck in the middle of chapter seven and your main character is just lost.

Number two, a mentor is someone you can trust to be unbiased and honest with you. This is different from perhaps the people that you have as friends or even your spouse. So to friends or a spouse, you might ask, “Does this dress make me look fat?” And they’ll say, “No, you look beautiful,” while your mentor might say, “You know what? You need to change because that’s not working for your figure.” Or with your friends or your spouse you might say, “You know what? I’m not feeling it anymore. I need to change jobs. I’m bored or unchallenged, or what have you,” and your friends or your spouse might say, “Do what you need to do. We will support you no matter what.” Whereas a mentor might say, “You know what? I’ve done that and that’s a really bad idea.”

Number three, a mentor can help open doors that would otherwise be closed to you. I may or may not be talking about the dreaded networking. I don’t really know anybody who enjoys networking, but I also don’t know anybody who would tell you that success has nothing to do with the people that you know. The person who ends up being your mentor, the person who’s been there and done that. They’ve met people along the way, people who can help you, people whom they can connect you with, people with whom you can network. Yes, I hate networking, but it is a necessary evil. It’s all about who you know, and your mentor can help expand the pool of people you know.

Number four, I know that we writers tend to do a lot of external processing by writing. We deal with things by writing about them a lot of the time, but sometimes knowing that a mentor is there to listen with an empathetic ear and to provide counsel can really be a relief, a lifeline, an anchor. Sometimes when I visit with Melissa, I feel like I’m going to counseling and it’s wonderful and it’s healthy and it lends me a perspective that I would not have otherwise had just from processing the goings on of life by myself. It can be healthy to talk things out and that’s been one of the great unexpected benefits of this mentorship.

Number five, a mentor can serve as a very good role model of how to act in certain social situations. Let’s face it, sometimes, we writers can be a little reclusive, perhaps lacking in some of the social graces. A mentor can be a really good tutor, especially if they’re willing to be honest and unbiased with you. I’ve learned a lot about how I present myself and how I speak to others from my mentor.

Number six, a good mentor will challenge you in ways that you are perhaps not aware of, or that perhaps you simply wouldn’t do for yourself. This is really one of my favorite things about having a mentor. They helped me see beyond what I think that I want and need and to help me identify and clarify where it is I should be focusing. Even better is that this means that having a mentor is not a passive activity. Having a mentor can challenge you to be more active than you thought you would or could be. Your mentor will likely have you set goals and will challenge you to reach or exceed them.

But at the same time, they won’t do the work for you. They’ll hold you accountable, but your mentor is not going to have the time to carry you or hold your hand. And honestly, that’s one of the most freeing things is to work with somebody who’s very experienced and who knows what they’re doing, but who also will let you fall if you need to fall and will let you make those mistakes and failures that are so crucial into building you up into the person that you need to be. They’re not going to do the hard stuff for you. They’re going to point out the hard stuff that you need to do and give you advice if you need advice on how to overcome it, but the ball’s in your court, sports metaphor.

Finally, number seven. My absolute favorite thing about meeting with Melissa is that afterwards I feel both refreshed and inspired. Conversations with her remind me why I love being a writer. It really brings me back to the core of myself and lends me perspective that takes me away from the little things that don’t matter so much. Also, there is nothing that will get you fired up about writing as much as talking to somebody else who is really fired up about writing. If you want to feel inspired, sit down for coffee with someone who loves to write as much as you do and have an open and honest conversation about all those beautiful possibilities that exist, about all the wonderful stories you can tell and the lives that you can change. After I meet with my writing mentor usually before work in the morning over coffee, I just want to skip work and go home and write for a million hours, which often frustratingly, I don’t have the luxury of doing.

So to recap, here are the seven reasons that you need a mentor. Number one, for advice from someone who’s been there and done that, and who knows what it takes to get you where you want to be. Number two, someone who is unbiased and unafraid to be honest with you in the way that you need them to be. Number three, a mentor can open doors that might otherwise be closed to you. Number four, a mentor can help alleviate stress and anxiety by providing empathy and counsel. Number five, a mentor can help train you in the social graces that you may need to be successful or to build the relationships that will make you successful. Number six, a mentor will challenge you and will challenge you to be active in doing what you need to do to be successful. And finally, number seven, meeting with a mentor will help you feel refreshed and inspired to continue doing this work that you love so much, but sometimes can seem so daunting.

With all that being said, how do you know who should be your mentor? Not everybody is going to email you and tell you that they felt kinship with you and, “Hello, would you like to be friends?” And I know it’s often not that easy. So I wrote down some traits to look for. Some of you may be looking for people of a certain age like, “Oh, I want someone who’s older than me because they’ll have wisdom.” Or “I want someone who’s younger than me because they have a fresh perspective,” and that’s fine. It doesn’t matter unless you want it to matter. The same thing is true of gender. I know some people who want a female mentor because they’re looking for ways to become a strong female leader and that’s fine. But if it doesn’t strictly matter to you, then do be willing to be open because the person who ends up being your mentor might not be who you thought you were looking for.

Here’s some ideas on where you can start looking for a mentor. An old professor or teacher, someone who you met at a workshop or writer’s conference, a member of your writer’s group, a fellow member of a book club that you belong to, an editor whom you know, and whom you think highly of, perhaps a spiritual or religious leader who you look up to, or maybe even a famous writer who’s willing to connect with you over email or Twitter or some other kind of social media. I’ve reached out to a couple of famous writers over Twitter, and I’ve gotten back a mixed bag of responses. Sometimes, you won’t get a response back at all and sometimes you’ll get back a very kind and thoughtful response and who knows what kind of connections can be made that way? You just have to be willing to try.

Finally, if there are some of you who are maybe a little bit more asocial, or if you have social anxiety or if you tend just to not like people very much, that’s okay. I have also found mentorship through books. One of my very favorite writers, Elizabeth Peters, she passed away recently within the past couple of years, but I still consider her one of my writing mentors. I started reading her books, I think in middle school. And she just greatly influenced me through her books. So if you find an author whose work you really enjoy reading, perhaps they can teach you some things through their writing as well. As far as the traits that should be inherent in this person who you’re considering to be your mentor, I think these are fairly universal, but again, this is my own personal list so feel free to disregard any that don’t make sense to you.

I believe that first and foremost, your mentor should be someone that you can trust. This person may end up learning very, very intimate secrets about you and maybe you don’t want everyone to know so it’s crucial that your mentor be someone whom you can trust. In fact, if I can give you one more piece of advice before you jump right into the whole, “Will you be my mentor?” thing, I suggest that you become friends first and just test it for a couple of sessions to see if you think you could trust this person.

Number two, it’s probably good if your mentor is someone who you admire and I’m not talking about like, “Gosh, he’s so hunky” or they’re beautiful and you admire how beautiful they are. I’m talking about make sure that you find someone who’s advice you will respect and follow. If it’s someone whom you feel you should be connected with, but sort of slightly resent, their advice is not going to do you any good. That relationship is not really going to be beneficial to you in the way that a mentorship should be. So make sure it’s somebody that you admire and respect.

Number three, I touched on this a little bit earlier, but make sure that this person is willing to be completely honest with you. Honesty is crucial.

Number four, make sure it’s somebody who is willing to take an interest in you and invest time in meeting with you. I’m not saying that they have to be at your beck and call 24 hours a day. In fact, it’s probably better if they’re not, but make sure that they’re invested. You don’t want someone who’s going to blow you off or do nothing, but check their email on their phone while you’re trying to talk to them.

Number five, make sure that even though they’re invested in you, that they’re not going to try to take over your life or do everything for you. Maybe you’ve had people butt into your life and try to take it over before. It is not pleasant.

Finally, and this is probably my favorite thing. Make sure that it’s somebody when you’re meeting with them, that you feel compelled to take out a notebook and take notes. Whenever I meet with Melissa, inevitably, I end up taking out my notebook and writing down about half of what she says. It’s awesome. That’s how you know that this person has wisdom that you’ll want to take with you. And you know what? Honestly, that goes both ways because she always takes out her notebook when we talk too, and that’s how I know she’s invested and that’s how I know that our relationship is reciprocal and that’s important to me.

You’ve maybe found somebody who you think could be a mentor. Maybe you haven’t spoken to them yet. The one thing that I’ve found that’s really useful, and this only applies to people who you can have a mentoring relationship with in person, but I’ve found that it’s really valuable to know how to ask the question, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee sometime?” I have met so many cool people, so many awesome and smart and wonderful people by asking them that question. Generally, people are pretty flattered. As long as you keep it under an hour, usually people are pretty flattered and you know, “Hey, they get a cup of coffee and this person wants to talk to me. That’s awesome.” Everybody loves helping out and feeling needed so I have coffee with people. During coffee, evaluate. “Is this the type of person that I’d want to be my mentor? Does this person have those traits that I’m looking for? And can I reciprocate the relationship?”

If you find that you think that you would make good friends, that’s awesome. That’s a great first step. Or if you find that they have valuable advice and empathy to give you, that’s also great so find what works for you. One final caveat, I know that there are services online where you can pay to have a mentor or pay to be matched up with a mentor. And if you want to do that, that is awesome. But do not feel like you should need to pay to have a mentor. Outside of purchasing the occasional cup of coffee for this person, I don’t think they should be charging you to spend time with them. No. If you’re meeting with an executive coach or a life coach, or what have you, that’s a little bit of a different situation or a counselor, but your mentor maybe should not be charging you money. Again, personal belief but I believe it.

At the end of the day, what you get out of your mentorship as with anything else in life, is what you’re willing to put into it. Take your mentor up on his or her challenges. Do not squander the time that you spend with them. And remember that writing doesn’t have to be as solitary as you thought. So let me know if you have a writing mentor or a work mentor, business mentor, whatever kind of mentor and how that affects your writing. I’d be really curious to know. You can leave me a comment at the end of this episode at sarahwerner.com. That’s sarahwerner.com. You can also email me at hello@sarahwerner.com or you can fill out my handy little contact form on my website. This week’s book of the week is a book that I am still reading.

Speaking of work-life balance you guys, I don’t always get the chance to finish a whole book every single week. And so I’m so sorry, book of the week will have to wait until next week. However, while I did not have time to finish a book for this week, I certainly have time to say thank you to you for listening. I would also like to thank my wonderful and kind and gracious mentor, Melissa. You’ve had such a huge impact on my life, not only in my writing, but in also just learning to be a better person so thank you very, very much.

I would also like to thank my Patreon supporters, including official rad dude, Sean Locke, and official podcast caffeinator, Rebecca Werner. You all do so much. You wonderful people and your wonderful financial contributions help to keep this podcast afloat so thank you so much.

This has been episode 19 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am Sarah Werner. And I want you to remember that you are not alone.