My friend, Becky Doughty, just blogged so eloquently on the topic of mentoring here: http://beckydoughty.com/2013/03/07/mentoring-or-enabling/. She shared a very personal experience about when her mentoring turned into enabling–not good for either party involved.
As I mentioned in this post, http://heatherdaygilbert.blogspot.com/2013/02/where-have-all-mentors-gone-and-winner.html, after many discussions with my author friends, we felt the strong need for mentoring for marrieds and authors. The way to do this is to create a community, a hub, where people with varied experiences can share their insights, and that’s what Married…with Fiction is all about.
Becky posted a list of what mentoring looks like. I’m going to share it here.
Mentoring is:
- Commending – promoting one another by openly speaking highly of each other.
- Entrusting – passing on important and pertinent information to those who can benefit from it.
- Teaching – clarifying what works and doesn’t work to those who are still learning.
- Shepherding – being willing to lead, to steer those who are floundering or might get lost without direction.
- Willingly and eagerly exercising oversight – offering discernment when areas of weakness or strength are noted.
- Being examples – living in a way that Shows, not Tells – sorry, writer humor.
- In humility – never setting oneself above others, no matter what station in life, but always being gracious, putting others first.
- Guiding – offering help and encouragement to others who might be struggling to find their way.
- Sharing – not only the gospel, but of ourselves. Sharing our hearts – things we’ve learned along the journey.
- Training – Being willing to be an example of what has and has not worked, so that others can see more clearly how they should go.
We are thrilled with this new way to connect, share, and grow. We have already lined up so many amazing guest bloggers, and we haven’t begun to touch the tip of the iceberg!
Today, our Married…with Fiction Facebook page opens. We would love for you to check it out and *Like* it! Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Married-with-Fiction/517203398330819?ref=ts&fref=ts. And our twitter feed is here: https://twitter.com/MarriedWFiction. Our Married…With Fiction website is launching April first.
Hoping you can all be a part of this community!
****How about you? Have you had any mentors that did something specific in the list above? Do share!****
Love it – Yay!Have a wonderful day with the co-op!Blessings,Becky
My parents have always been my best mentors. They've provided me with everything on your list, plus unconditional love while growing up. Any they still do! I'm looking forward to your new website!
Great thought, Jill–yes, my parents were mentors to us, too. And you're right–they still are! AND grandparents and parents-in-law. It's great when family steps up to the plate! And thanks–we're excited, too!
That's a really good list of what mentoring is! Maybe one of the reasons more folks don't mentor others is they really don't have an idea about what it is, beyond some vague concept? That list should really be kept in the pocket of Bible-study leaders, and other folks who could be in the position to mentor others.Checked out the M.W.F. facebook page, and it was nice. I applaud everyone involved with M.W.F. for shoring up support first on Facebook and Twitter; it appears that the website will be the main focus, so it is good that when that launches, folks who then visit the Twitter or Facebook elements of M.W.F. won't get the "ghost town" feel, as y'all are already building followers on those platforms. Guess "followers" is the correct word for social media, as people are more willing to follow if there are others doing the same.Keep the updates on M.W.F. coming! I find not only the actual service itself to be worthwhile, but the process of how it and everyone involved navigates the social media and contemporary publishing landscape to be both fascinating, and informative.
Thanks so much for your enthusiasm, Larry! I will keep these updates coming. Yes, we're doing quite the media campaign launch! I know, it's convicting to know that each of us needs to be mentoring those younger, more inexperienced, or simply less mature in life, as well as writing. SO much to learn, all the time. I have learned so much just by interviewing authors over here. You can read almost any author interview and discover something to apply to your own writing journey. But at the same time, we each have our own individual journeys, which aren't going to look exactly like anyone else's. Rambling on here today, sorry! Just wanted to say thanks for your thoughts!
Indeed! I suppose it's not just those who mentor who must reflect on what it means, but those who are being mentored. I'd say that sometimes when folks are being mentored, they try to apply everything to themselves, and their writing journey, instead of recognizing there are sometimes objective truths: During which point they might want to evaluate their wrting journey, to see if they are going where they want to go.That was probably my biggest lesson from one of my writing mentors: to realize, "Yeah, I'm going to have to put in a lot of work to make this not just be a book, but be art." What I wanted most at the time was to be published, to know that I was a "real" author, validation for my work and my own ego. Not to say I didn't appreciate writing as an art, or that I didn't try to do my best, just that I thought I HAD done my best, and wanted validation for it.And don't worry about rambling. Rambling, I like to say, is just when we can't keep up with the wisdom the Holy Spirit is telling us!