I know what you’re thinking. “What, no 50 Shades recap? THIS IS HORSESHIT!” and then you probably threw your coffee in someone’s face. You need to get your anger issues in check, yo.
No, there is no recap today, because I am meeting with my mentee, or manatee, in any case, the pre-published writer I mentor.
I’m pretty sure when people think, “responsible career mentor,” they think something like…
The sad reality (at least, for the person I mentor) is that mentorship looks more like this…
I like to dress up, okay? It’s healthy. Don’t stifle my creativity.
I had some amazing mentors. You may have heard me name drop them. They’re authors Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Cheryl Sterling, and Stephanie Michaels. They took me under their wing and taught me how to take the first chapter of my sad little vampire story and make it into something an editor wouldn’t set on fire right before leaping out of their office window. My very first editor, Shannon Godwin, also helped mold me into the writer I am today, and for that, I’m very grateful.
When it became apparent that I had this “being a writer” thing somewhat figured out, it was suggested that I take a writer under my wing, as well. Little did that poor, hapless writer know, my wings were more like the wings of an albatross, and they were going to drag her ass down to some pretty bleak depths.
A lot of people, when they hear that I mentor a pre-published writer, say stuff like, “How lucky she is, to have a USA Today Bestselling author to mentor her!” This could not be further from the truth.
Here is a sampling of things I have done to my poor mentee, who I will call E:
- Locked her in my basement and refused to let her out until she wrote five hundred words.
- Threatened to hit her with a lead pipe if she didn’t meet her weekly goal.
- Told her that I would break into her house while she was sleeping, climb astride her sleeping body, lean over her face and slowly apply lipstick in ever widening circles to my own mouth while staring at a point somewhere just above her head.
- E has a desk in my office. When she started to slack off on her goals, I started piling shit on her desk. Just random stuff, like crafting supplies and papier mache projects I was working on.
- Threatened to run her over with a car.
- Remember the thing with the lipstick? That, but instead of lipstick, I was going to look her in the eye and slowly draw a razor blade over the surface of my own eyeball.
E remembers some of this differently. She says the lead pipe and the car were part of a progression that goes like this:
- “You were going to beat me with a broom if I didn’t get my goals done.”
- “The second offense, if I still didn’t get my goals done after beating me with the broom, you were going to take out my knees with a lead pipe.”
- “And if for some reason, with broken knees, I still did not get my goals made, you would run me over with a car. Best mentor ever.”
So, you know, I guess the moral of this whole story is, “be careful what you wish for.”
It sounds like you are dedicated to mentoring your mentee. You know, my favorite author once said that writing is like opening a vein. As bright and sunny as that analogy may seem, I would suspect that mentoring someone to write would be just as sunny, at least you are yourself with E.
” Here is a sampling of things I have done to my poor mentee, who I will call E:
Locked her in my basement and refused to let her out until she wrote five hundred words.
Threatened to hit her with a lead pipe if she didn’t meet her weekly goal.
Told her that I would break into her house while she was sleeping, climb astride her sleeping body, lean over her face and slowly apply lipstick in ever widening circles to my own mouth while staring at a point somewhere just above her head.
E has a desk in my office. When she started to slack off on her goals, I started piling shit on her desk. Just random stuff, like crafting supplies and papier mache projects I was working on.
Threatened to run her over with a car.
Remember the thing with the lipstick? That, but instead of lipstick, I was going to look her in the eye and slowly draw a razor blade over the surface of my own eyeball.”
Sure sounds like a 50 Shades recap to me….