The Importance of Mentorship

Yesterday, I spent an hour in the pool with a good friend, going over the intricacies of the free style stroke. I am a longtime swimmer, both on swim teams and for pure pleasure, and I have also taught swimming to youngins at Coral Gables' Venetian Pool. I must say that I learned so much about swimming by teaching it. I thought about different aspects of the strokes that I had never considered before. This is probably because I was learning from a champion swimmer who has made this her life.

My friend knows how to swim. She's swam all her life. But -- she's never actually been taught how to swim. She gets tired easily, she says. Her legs feel leaden after a few laps. I could see why after I watched her cross the pool once. Her kicks are inefficient and she isn't breathing properly. Yes, she can jump into the deep end of the pool and make it to the wall without drowning. The problem is that she won't do it the best way that she possibly could.

Which is where I come in. I watch her swim, I swim alongside her, I try my best to make sure my strokes are an example of what hers could be with some practice. I give her pointers and praise. Afterwards, she tells me what a difference our short time together has made.

"It's important to have a teacher," I tell her.
"I was just going to watch YouTube videos," is her response.

We live in a world where we can learn anything on our own. The internet provides us with a cacophony of resources for every hobby and craft. I am not against it. But I do believe that having a real, live teacher makes a world of difference. This breathing body can tell you all the same things that a Wiki How-To article can do, but you can ask questions and perhaps discover even more than you set out to learn. This person can give you the wisdom collected through their past experiences so that you can learn from their mistakes.

When I wanted to learn how to bake bread, I apprenticed for an artisan baker. When I wanted to learn how to grow food, I spent several seasons working alongside experienced vegetable growers, watching how they did things and asking why they made the decisions that they did. It's the same reason why I go to yoga classes even though I could very well practice by myself in my living room.

This is also the reason why I joined an MFA program. I wanted that living, breathing person swimming beside me who has spent a lifetime swimming miles upon miles in many different bodies of water. And luckily, I have found several of these mentors in my program.

Just recently, I learned Transcendental Meditation from a great teacher, Prudence Bruns, the inspiration behind The Beatle's song, Dear Prudence. I have dabbled in meditation for many years, but it has never clicked for me like it did during this training. Every time we met, I had more questions for her. She brought in past experiences, or the experiences of her pupils, and taught us a great deal in a short amount of time. I hope to continue learning from her as the years go by and my meditation practice deepens.

And so, I urge you to seek out a mentor in your craft. Perhaps there is a skill you've been dreaming to learn. Find someone in your area who is an expert in this, and offer them a hand. People don't generally turn down help. It's in working alongside them that you will have the opportunity to learn from their wisdom and experience. A few hours spent working alongside a skilled quiltmaker or master beekeeper could prove to be invaluable in your development as a quiltmaker or beekeeper. Not only will you gain the knowledge, but you might gain a lifelong friend in the process.

Author Spotlight: Barbara Shoup

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of listening to Barbara Shoup give a reading. She's a YA author promoting her latest book, Looking for Jack Kerouac.

She said she loved novel writing because it uses both sides of the brain. One side is the "What if?" or right side, and the other side is the "What do we do with it?" or left side brain. It's a constant balance between being in control and letting go of control. As a writer, you have to be open to new things. You have to let the story take its course instead of trying to force it to be something that it's not.

Shoup also spoke at length about something we talk about often in my writing workshops: what makes the reader keep reading? What is the yearning, the heartbreak, the crucial unanswerable question at the heart of this story? Without it, you cannot have a compelling story.

She said that the main way to incorporate this yearning into your story is to access it from deep within yourself. A writer must be willing to mine their own personal history and connect with a yearning they themselves know intimately. Even if the story has nothing to do with the writer's life, there must be something personally at stake for the writer.

Also, she reminded us that "nothing is lost."  As writers, it is our jobs to turn pain into something beautiful. We wrestle with words until we make the pain more bearable. I can speak from personal experience that it is those moments of intense emotion that have the longest legacy on the page.


Luckily for me, her talk focused on her process in writing this book, and in writing novels in general. She prefers to stay away from writing software and uses old-school methods like drawing charts and making calendars. She also explained how she builds a visual map of her story line using colors to track where there are flashbacks and when characters are in scene.  She even passed around her "Process Book," a log she keeps while writing full of factual information, character development, backstory, problems, revisions, and tasks. In order to write Looking for Jack Kerouac, she herself had to take a road trip down to St. Peter to collect "research." Another great reason to be a writer!

Listening to her talk about the process of writing a book was exciting and also daunting. "You can hold a short story in your hand," she said. "But you can't hold a novel in the same way. Sometimes, you get lost. And, to make matters worse, you're never the same person at the end as you were when you started writing the book." She says it takes her years to write a novel, and many - many - drafts. Each time you rewrite the story, you learn something new about the characters, about the yearning, about the possibilities for depth in this story. You start with the bones and you keep on layering.

Every writer has to figure out what works for them, and that takes time. It is my hope to use my summer to find out what my artist's way is... Check back for more updates as I blog about my writer's journey!

And thank you to Barbara Shoup for introducing me to this beautiful quote:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. –Ernest Hemingway

The Not-So-Restless Writer?

It was Sunday morning, nearing noon. The day was bright and blue, and I knew this because I could see it from my window at my desk. It dawned on me then, as I watched a cardinal hop around a tree outside, that I had been sitting at my desk for nearly three days straight - and even weirder - I was okay with this fact. It was a strange feeling, when I realized I had only been between school, home, and the gym for over a week. I looked at my royal blue Rav 4 sitting in the driveway, looking lonely, and I remembered the girl I used to be, not all that long ago.

In Miami, I couldn't go between point A and point B without stopping to take a quick dip in the ocean or meeting a friend for an impromptu walk or yoga session. I was the girl who always had a bathing suit, towel, high heels and a little black dress in my trunk. Oh, and my hula hoop, of course. I lived out of my car, quite seriously. I was on the m-o-v-e, all the time, and my car was my closest confidante.

My bicycle is my main form of transportation now. It takes me all the places I need to go: from my house to my office, from my office to the gym, from the gym back to my office, and from my office, home sweet home. Sometimes, I take my speedy two-wheeler for a spin around Lettuce Lake Park about a mile from my house.

My world has shrunk to a 1.5 mile radius. That is insanity to me.

What's even more insane is the fact that I couldn't be happier about this. To be honest, the nesting habits crept up on me, like a slow fog. It started with the clearing of the desk. And then the growing of the plants. Now I have bird friends outside my window everyday and it's as if, all of a sudden, I woke up in the clouds, and I never knew I was being lifted away.

But I guess this is the reason why I came to grad school, after all. To drop out of my life of chaotic excitement, and drop into a new, quieter one - one that strives for the beauty of authentic expression.

I spoke to my friend in Costa Rica last night. He's used to my spur-of-the-moment trips south.

"When are you coming back down here?" he asked. In the background, I can hear the sounds of the rainforest all around him.
"You know," I said. "I really don't know." Silence. "Things feel... different, now."
"Hmm," he said after a while. "Estas comprometida." Comprometida - to be engaged, committed.
"Yes, I think you're right. Estoy comprometida."
"Eso es bueno!" he said with a laugh. He's an artist too so he knows what it feels like to be on fire about your craft. He knows about this rabbit hole, he knows it well.

That Sunday afternoon, I could have sat at my desk all day. But, it felt sacrilegious to let such a perfect day slide by my window without getting out there and communing with the elements. I had to honor that other part of myself, the wild one. So I called up my friend Sarah and we made a date to watch the sunset on the beach. It felt strange to drive my car across the long bridge to St. Pete, weaving between traffic and listening to sugary pop songs on the radio. But it all made sense when I plunged into the cold waves, tinged pink from the setting sun, releasing my body to this saltwater altar.

A fellow free spirit