Dear Tribe,
Read Kevin Fedarko’s piece on mentoring at
http://www.themayborn.com/fedarko_1.html.
Did it hit home? Did a mentor play a big role in your writing life?
http://www.themayborn.com/fedarko_1.html.
Did it hit home? Did a mentor play a big role in your writing life?
George Getschow
As so many people associated with the Mayborn and the conference know, a good mentor can (and often is) the difference between a promising career doing interesting work and a wasted talent passing the years doing something that’s barely tolerable. Having someone with experience who actually cares about your future – in my case writer-in-residence, George Getschow – provided the insight, instruction and direction I never would have received from a textbook or some stranger in a turtleneck and jacket (the stereotypical professor attire) clicking through a Powerpoint slideshow. Having someone send your story back to you with the instructions to re-write it entirely (“I’m not sure what you were trying to do here,” George has been known to say, “but it’s not working for you at all”), could be devastating to a young journalist. But when it comes from a mentor who you know wants you to become a better writer, it can make all the difference.
I have had two mentors, Eric Goodman (Child of My Right Hand, In Days of Awe, and others) and Scott Berg (Grand Avenues). Eric asked questions – that’s all he did – ask questions. But those questions had a way of expanding the scene, conflict, character(s) so that not only did problems become more evident, but solutions became more available, all the while leaving me in complete ownership of the piece. It was pure gift that Eric is also honest-to-God funny. Scott was more direct in his encouragement, combining, as he said, “a pat on the back and a kick in the ass” with clear editorial insight and high expectations. Between the two of them, I finished a novel (Walker’s Island) in spite of myself. They kept reading and responding through every revision, and kept encouraging me through all of my whining. At some point, though, I decided to trust that writing is what I’m here to do, that I belong in and to the world in that particular way, and my voice is welcome. That decision has given me a kind of interior sturdiness I didn’t have before, and now I find mentors all around me. Rilke speaks to me lately in this poem: “The hour is striking so close above me,/so clear and sharp,/that all my senses ring with it./I feel it now; there’s a power in me/to grasp and give shape to my world.//I know that nothing has ever been real without my beholding it./All becoming has needed me./My looking ripens things/and they come toward me, to meet and be met.”
Searching for direction and encouragement can be an endless quest. My hopes came to fruition only recently without overture or grand spectacle. This learned gentleman, kind and patient beyond any reasonable expectation, walks me through my intimidating trials and challenges me to reach heights in my work that I alone have lacked the vision and confidence to achieve. His talent and influence are great yet he gently holds my secrets and desires with integrity above reproach.
This lanky figure of a man dressed in black with thinning wild hair and compassionate eyes selflessly shares his time and talent. “You are on your way. I am proud of you,” he said to me just last evening. If indeed I am on my way, it is to a destination I would have never had the courage to attempt without his guidance down the path.
The electronic whirr of the bell drew the class of six high school seniors to tensely quiet attention, all eyes watching the doorway, waiting. Toes flexed in back-to-school shoes, fingers fumbled with new notebooks.
A small women, with short brown hair and sharp, birdlike eyes entered briskly.
“First things first, it’s not the Democratic Party- they’re Democrats, capitalized same as the Republicans. I don’t give out grades; you earn them. Open your notebooks and let’s begin. I talk fast so try to keep up.”
Mrs. Barratti was the most feared teacher in the high school. She expected students to work hard, use their minds, never lowering those expectations for anyone. She required her class to look outside themselves, really see the world. I went to school with fevers to take her tests, listened to the news religiously. Her class was my introduction to the world outside my own small sphere.
Thanks to author Kevin Fedarko for giving us a strangely alluring view of the mentored and his drinking buddy, the tormented. As the mentored, Fedarko, awakens from a hangover to tell us how he got it and why he want to keep it-his mentor that is not the hangover. The tormented, writer and friend Bob Shacochis pull far on a rack known as getting published is willing to let Fedarko watch.
These two characters compliment their non fiction writing torture discussions with loathing of self, somewhat of each other but uniformly of a murky bad presence, the editor. This is a story of reassurance — the soul that may take a shot at you can ultimately guide you. For me, getting a mentor seems akin to being blindfolded then placing your hand in spaghetti brains at Halloween- intimate but terrifying. I see where drinking, cussing and complaining helps these guys through it. The tale makes me wish for my very own mentor to take my hand and show me his brain which is only soggy because it is soaked in courage.
Whispers of the feature writing class and the tough, unrelenting professor known for wielding an unforgiving red pen engulf my consciousness. The roaring internal voice of anxiety fills my ears as I rub my cold, sweaty palms down the side of my pant leg. Looking around at the blank faces of my classmates I wonder if I am alone with my neurosis. A glance at my watch shows ten past 3pm. “Good,” I muse. “He’s running late, class might be canceled!” This thought makes me smile. With that, the classroom door swings open. I hold my breath. A man strolls in, his arms filled with books and files. Bright red hair is swept across his freckled forehead and he’s dressed in all black, down to a pair of worn, pointed cowboy boots. My internal voice is now more like a screeching train. “Oh lord. This is worse than I’d feared. It’s the ghost of Johnny Cash!” I grab a tissue from my purse and blow my nose. “Hello writers,” he smiles. The scary professor that I had heard so much about, turned out to be one of the most inspirational individuals I’ve ever encountered. He continues to teach me about the craft of writing and more importantly he has helped me to believe in myself and that I am a writer.
I strolled into his office with my real, fake smile glowing. My childhood career in beauty pageants perfected my real, fake smile.
Billy, however, took one careful look at me and said calmly, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, why do you think something’s wrong?”
“Your eyes, they’re sad,” he responded, not missing a beat.
At that moment looking around my youth minister’s office at the stacks of Bibles, papers, devotional books and various sporting goods: balls, nets, rackets and what have you, my sad eyes began to moisten. Leading uncontrollably to tear stained cheeks and blubbering words coming from my teenage mouth.
“I just don’t understand why I can be best friends with all the boys but none of them can see me as more than that?!”
And then he smiled and responded, “well Courtney, teenage boys are stupid. God is protecting you from all the scars some other girls your age will have.”
I’m sure I argued a bit more after that, but even so, that one sentence seemed to appease my young mind. Billy, my high school mentor and youth minister, always had the right words.
In “Write hard, die free: searching for a mentor and finding…Bob,” Kevin Fedarko touched a lot of chords in me, especially in describing the stark loneliness and difficulty of writing. Coincidentally, the only writing mentor I’ve ever known helped me arrive in what Fedarko calls the “pain cave” for the first time recently.
I was sitting in the pedicure chair at Nail City when my cell phone rang in late May. It was my feature writing teacher.
“I think you should enter that essay you wrote on your pilgrimage to Rome in the Mayborn essay writing competition,” said the voice on the phone.
“I wouldn’t think people would be interested in a religion piece.”
“It’s a PERSONAL essay.”
“Oh.”
“It’ll need some revision. Call me and we’ll talk.”
Three weeks later, as I laid out my mentor’s revision ideas in a yellow Post-it note patchwork quilt on my desk, the desolation of the soul that Fedarko describes began to envelop me. Why hadn’t I written G.G.’s revision suggestions more legibly? And why hadn’t I started sooner? I had a migraine headache, but the deadline was looming now. And nobody takes notes on pilgrimage: What DID the inside of the Colosseum look like? And how many people were crammed into the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican anyway? WORK!
Over the next four days, I found out writing is work. And research. And then more work. And…EEK…having to be creative: New journalism techniques needed from the self-described blue-collar journalist, me, who was trained in the old journalism school of the 5 W’s and reporter-as-detached-observer.
But if my newfound mentor was willing to put time into the piece because he believed in it, couldn’t I?
Uh…. Sure.
It took me 27 years to stumble upon the man I consider my mentor, the OTHER man in black. I had heard people’s viewpoints on him, he was a man you either loved or hated and since it was a required class, I had no other options. If I totally despised him, I would have to deal with it. I am so thankful I stuck it out! George Getschow opened my eyes to a whole new world out there and spent Spring 2007 helping me to find a way into that world. At the same time he is the only person I’ve met in my personal or professional life who has read a piece and said “that is so cliche, start over.” And for those things I’ve changed my outlook on the journalism profession and become a better writer because of him. I may not have reached greatness yet, but I’m no longer lingering in idiocy either.
George told our class to find something that helps us to find the focus of our stories, an image or picture or something, something that reminds us of who we are or what we will become. I picture that man in black with the thinning red hair, journaling intently as someone speaks or focusing on a student’s piece and then destroying it because he knows they can do better. I took his class out of necessity, but grew as a writer because he showed me the writer that was buried inside of me!
I am writing this email from a Moscow hotel room. I have spent the last week with members of a small Methodist church in Voronezh, a city of slightly more than a million people that is a 12-hour trip by train south of Moscow. Methodists make up less than 1 per cent of the population in Russia, where 70% are self proclaimed Russian Orthodox, but few actually have any true Christian faith. During the eight days I was in Voronezh, I lived with a church family, interviewed numerous others and put together the skeleton of a book about protestant Christians struggling to grow their church in a society that still considers Methodism a cult. I believe I have a great story and would love a writing mentor. But like Kevin, I don’t know how to find one. I am already struggling mentally how to present a story that people will read while simultaneously treating my subjects with the respect that they deserve. This is a ongoing problem for me. I care too much for those about which I am writing and my work suffers as a result. I would love to know how other people deal with this issue as I launch, what I believe, is the writing project of my life.
I don’t think I have a mentor, but perhaps I am being watched by hidden camera or influenced by literary ghosts. (what do I know?) The part of the article that really hit home with me was the descriptions of walking dogs, running power tools poorly, drinking, brooding and generally avoiding the writing tasks that are orbiting our heads or just sitting on our desks waiting for us. I am a high school teacher on summer break right now and I thought I was going to be getting to a bunch of writing this summer but so far my big occupation has been ditch digging for irrigation lines that will hopefully make my stickery, dry foothills yard a hospitable place for wildflowers and peach trees. (Sometime after this Garden of Eden project is accomplished, I will begin work on my writing cabin…because everyone who hopes to write deathless prose needs a little rustic writing cabin, right?) So, anyway, ditch digging is the thing for now. It is quite possibly the most unromantic of activities, requiring sheer animal strength and stick-with-it-ness. There is always a tendency to think the ditch is finished when it’s not; there’s always some widening or deepening than needs to be done. Afterwards all you’ve got in your yard is a mess that needs to be reckoned with…all in the name of wildflowers and having fruit that drips down your chin when you bite into it. Sound like writing? My friend helped me dig a ditch yesterday and afterwards we drank a beer together, wiped loam off our brows and talked about what a pain in the ass ditch-digging was– there’s nothing quite like talking about how much something sucks with a friend who really understands. (Writing?)
He never looks at anyone when he meets them in the halls. If his spiked blonde hair and baggy, untucked shirts are not enough to warn people away, the signs on his door and around his office do. As an English major, I had to take Creative Writing, and it was either with he or “the Dragon Lady” from Boston, so I enrolled. The first day of class and a few minutes late he entered the room and with the remainders of a slight Canadian accent said, “I’m Nat Hardy and you want to write.”
In his classes we wrote and workshopped both poetry (which I excelled,) and fiction (which I struggled with). He nagged and groaned and never was satisfied with anything we wrote–nor with anything he wrote–and kept us constantly in revision mode. He taught us to look for the shortest route to the statement, and to paint the brightest picture possible (or the darkest, if that was the objective.)
Thanks to him I have won a couple of awards for my poetry and have had some published. Oddly, like Dr. Hardy, I’m never satisfied and am always reworking and editing until it “feels.” Once I get there, I submit to whomever and wherever, then return to the edit process–just in case.
Although he is now across the country, Dr. Hardy continues to support me and my career. I aspire to do for one student what he did for me.
As an addendum, I also took “The Dragon Lady” and she continues to mentor and teach me to this day. Her skills in fiction are enviable.
Here is a letter I wrote to George Getschow recently. I think it sums up his impact on me as a writer.
Dear George,
I am sitting in the penthouse suite on the 32nd floor of the Park 55 hotel in downtown San Francisco. As I gaze out the window at the fog rolling over the tops of the skyscrapers I can hear the honking of taxis on the street below. I wanted to take this moment to tell you what an experience it was working with you on “My Shadows”. I told you it changed my life, and that is not an exaggeration. Before I met you, I thought I knew what it meant to be a writer. I grimace now at how ignorant and naive I was. Thank you for not laughing at me, or simply ignoring.
I wanted this letter to be perfect. I tried writing a few times but the words would not come. How do you write a letter to your literary mentor and not quibble over the choice of words and sentence formation? I suppose that you will forgive a novice of his mistakes when the objective here is not publication, but merely to offer my gratitude and inform you about the tremendous effect you have had on my semi-young life.
I find now that I look at things in a much more critical way. I watched the sunset with my wife down at the bay this evening and I found myself writing a little story in my head about the scene and place, and the meaning of things. It could have been the three glasses of a great Merlot I had at dinner, but I think it was your urging to think in terms of the deepest possible meaning that led me to search beyond the visual images that danced before my eyes. I find that I do this more and more now, and I owe that to you. It is a deeper level of living, and a more meaningful one. I thank you for that. My days are richer as I look down every alley and listen to passerby’s conversations. Its like I am really living, and the world is a magical place.
I see the beauty of the world in a way that I previously took for granted. It unfolds in front of me like an epic saga that is being written moment by moment. You inspired that, and again I thank you.
On a more technical note, you instilled in me a passionate love for the workshop. I love having my work torn apart and analyzed. I savor the insights and critiques that other writers offer when they read my work. I find that it grows my brain and my story little by little as unseen errors and possibilities are uncovered and discussed. I crave workshops. I think this might be rare, because you warned us in class to not get defensive and whatnot. I think you taught me to really value them, and I like that.
Also, the vomiting thing. I think I will hold on to that more than anything else we have talked about. When you told me that, I was shocked initially at your bluntness. I had never been confronted with such unabashed criticism in my life. After the shock faded and I was able to see what you were saying, I felt a rush of joy about what had been shared with me. This is how you really write I told myself. Someone on the inside has just given you the secret. You cannot just write and write you have to birth the words and phrases. Squeeze your mind until it is bone dry and then squeeze some more. You are right, it is torturous. But the adrenaline released from the self flagellation, and the ecstasy of reading back a great turn of phrase is the greatest high I have ever known.
Anyway, I remember the first time I saw you in the GAB. You strode down the hall in all black. Black blazer, black boots and a gaze that said I know exactly where I am going. I thought “who the fuck does this guy think he is?” Well, I realized exactly who you were when I took your class, and when I got to know you a bit better working with you on “My Shadows”. You are a real writer. A professional in every sense of the word. I still can’t believe I have had conversation with someone of your level. You epitomize for me what I want to become in this world. There is a timelessness to your presence, and a spirit to your personality that inspires others to look harder at a world that you seem to see so effortlessly. I treasure the insights that you share with me and hope to have many more conversations in years to come.
Thank you so much.
George, Thanks for being the needle on my writing life compass.