Finding a Writing Mentor
When it’s time to go beyond self-taught writing and revision
All that pitching: I pitched 33 agents, and not one bite. Something wasn’t working. My original plan was to pitch 50 agents or until I received a response, whichever came first. If I heard nothing, I’d go back to the drawing board (or writing table, as it were). Then one agent, bless her, gave me the first and only non-standard rejection: the premise of my story, query letter, synopsis, and prose caught her attention and were very promising, but the beginning pages didn’t contain “a question that needed answering right from the start so I could get curious and eager for the next page.”
I could work with this! True, she was just one voice among many to give feedback, so who knew what the others thought. But when you’re operating in the dark and a pinprick of light blinks on, you follow it. I’d done as much as I knew how in editing my manuscript, polished it as shiny as could be, and couldn’t have told you under duress where I should start “making it better” until that agent told me.
I now had my starting point: the first chapter. Hook the reader.
That was kinda the crux of it, though. I thought I had hooked the reader. Every writer knows the importance of pulling the reader into the first pages, and I’d read novels and how-to writing books on how to hook the reader, but clearly I hadn’t. I didn’t know how to fix it, and in that uncertainty lay the hint that maybe a whole lot else needed TLC. But what else, and how?
When to Find a Writing Mentor
It was time to enlist help. My last creative writing course was in college, and beyond that, I just always wrote. Reading, writing, rinse and repeat, were my teachers, with the occasional writing book thrown in and, eventually, a writing group. It was time to take it one step further. An editor might seem like the obvious answer…but I’d begun to crave feedback and exercises on my writing quality, the craft itself, rather than specific edits on my work-in-progress.
Around that time, a few things converged. First, I listened to the podcast Once Upon a Time in Bennington College, which explores the chaotic, sometimes scandalous lives of the famous writers who attended the Vermont school, class of ‘86. They were all writing with each other, or in competition with each other, or under the guidance of a professor or mentor, and I started to feel like I was missing out on a critical part of my development as a writer. And I read The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante. It resonated in a way that again had me wishing a mentor could point out where, exactly, I was messing something up; give me ideas on how to improve, feedback specifically on my work.
An editor is necessary for one piece of work. But I wanted help on improving my craft and then apply what I learn to everything I write. An editor is like going from B (the work) and applying that to A (everything else you write), and I wanted to go from A to B.
And Where to Find a Writing Mentor
My options: enroll in an MFA, sign up for a creative writing class, or find a mentor. The first two would really just serve to find a mentor within the course or class. Finding a mentor directly, therefore, was the best route.
I scoured reviews of the many options available in NYC and online, and it looked like Gilliam Writers matched what I wanted. The company offers a variety of mentorships, such as tutoring for students, full manuscript edits, and coaching for creatives and professionals. I set up a call and discussed my goals and what I was working on; they asked me who my favorite authors and books were. Then they presented 4-5 different people on their staff who they thought might be a good match. I looked through their backgrounds for a few days and couldn’t decide—they were all professionals with excellent writing backgrounds. I told the company to match me with who they thought was a good fit.
I quickly realized in my bi-weekly sessions with my mentor they selected, Josh Barnett, that I did, in fact, wish to work on my manuscript. Something wasn’t resonating with agents, and at least in one instance that something was the first 2,000 words. Josh has been so helpful in offering thoughtful, constructive feedback on literally whatever I am struggling with, and magically sees beyond whatever it is I bring up. He’s given suggestions and ideas to stretch my creative writing wings when I’d thought I’d already exhausted the structure, plot, character, scene—it’s basically like therapy for my book. All its issues and hopes and dreams get discussed, and I like to think I’ve been improving my writing little by little.
I’m writing on Substack again because I’ve come to a pause in my WIP, after fully editing it in ways I wouldn’t have been able to unlock on my own. Ready to begin pitching, again, and ready to recount that journey.
Writing doesn’t ever get easier, but it does consistently improve. Having a writing mentor is one way to jump ahead.
Stuff I Like
Gilliam Writers: If you’re looking for writing guidance, check out this company. I’ve had a really successful experience so far.
Once Upon a Time in Bennington College: 14 episodes long, Lili Anolik gets into the early lives of Bret Easton Ellis, Johnathan Lethem, and Donna Tartt (whose literary agents famously asked the podcast to either stop or remove the episodes, because it was prying too much into her personal background). This is a continuation of an article written by Anolik for Esquire, The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s' Most Decadent College.
The Making of a Story, by Alice LaPlante: This is a great creative writing book that guides readers through each stage of the writing process: from point of view to plot to writing craft.