Whether you’re a freelance writer, a designer, or some other creative professional, you’ll almost always benefit from having a mentor. Someone who’s more experienced to show you the ropes, answer questions, maybe even pass along a few juicy leads. But how do you find such generous, wonderful people?
Everywhere!
I met one of my long-time mentors when she was the keynote speaker at a young professional women’s breakfast. Four years later, I still look forward to her emails and texts, asking how things are going or sharing news about her latest book. I’ve also found mentors by reading their blogs and emailing them for advice (usually I’ll comment first so my name will look familiar and they’ll know I’m truly interested in what they have to say). Often that blossoms into a cyber-mentorship and sometimes a face-to-face mentorship when one of us visits the other one’s city.
And mentors aren’t necessarily older versions of you. I’ve taken classes from entrepreneurs in other fields who gave me a fresh outside perspective on strategies for running a business. Questions like “why does it have to work that way simply because other writers do it that way?” challenges me to think bigger or differently.
What about you? How have you found mentors? And what did you learn from them?
One of my greatest mentors started out as one of my professors. She was adjuncting at the university and taught a couple of journalism classes. But I wound up spending more time with her after I got an internship with the local daily paper, where she worked. It was great to be able to see my mentor in such different situations and definitely helped me to see that there was no one right way to put together a career.
I would love to have a writing mentor sometime in the future. For NaNoWriMo, I was a mentor for one of the younger participants. It felt really wonderful being able to help them keep going even when they had writer's block!
~TRA
http://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com
Susan, you've given me some great advice along the way, but as far as someone who has held my hand a bit through the process of starting this more full time, I have a mentor of sorts who is younger than I, but who has been more intensely doing freelance while I've been raising my family. She has things to share and I'm listening. Age isn't always indicative of wisdom. I know that I have been a mentor to others, too, perhaps more in the area of general writing and seeking publication. Mentoring is one of those things that tends to be circular (and should be). You give to some, you gain from others, you give more.
That's the benefit of belonging to a professional writers association like PWAC (if you are a Canadian writer. We have a mentorship program which is very flexible and useful. I was mentored in travel writing via the program back in 1997, and since then, I have mentored several members – and hopefully helped them as well. Any freelance writer in Canada should belong to PWAC. See http://www.pwac.ca.
If you live elsewhere, find a similar writer's org and take advantage of the mentorship program they likely have.
Oh how I long for a mentor. It is on my wish list.
I think that a mentor is invaluable for any endeavor. am looking at the Long Ridge Writers Group. It is a program that may be able to help me broaden my scope while assigning me a personal instructor/mentor. Is anyone familiar with Long Ridge?