Story Eleven and Mentors

Talking About Mentors

I did a one-shot class last year about what I learned from my mentors over 50 years of writing. It was fun to do, looking back like that. It is on Teachable and still available.

No one gets successful in this publishing business alone, that’s for sure.

And now Kris and I do our best to get our years of knowledge passed on to the next generations through workshops, blogs, and mentorships.

Back when we were coming into the business, a mentorship was more of let’s talk when we are both at the same convention. Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm were different, slightly. They taught at Clarion and then if you made it through that and were in their home town over the weekend they did a workshop, you were invited. A little different but not much.

There were so many hundreds of questions I wanted to ask my mentors as things came up, but then never got the chance, or I solved it before the next convention, right or wrong.

About eight or so years ago, I offered to be a mentor to some writers. And since the one thing I didn’t like about the wonderful people who were sort of helping me was that I could not just ask them a question at any time, so I set it up that the writers who were working with me could.

And I set it up that the writer had to report in to me what was happening either every week or at least monthly.  I would help with business, career decisions, sales, but would not read any work. The regular check-ins allowed me to see a pattern.

I charged $3,000 for it, but there was no end point. I was there to answer questions as long as you wanted to ask them. And I was a cheerleader with the regular reports unless I saw something going sideways. Then I said something.

Kris had zero doubt that the way I was doing it was not anything she could do. But last fall, she decided to go to her strengths and offered a mentorship to a few writers of six months working on craft. Her rules were that she would give an assignment to the writer of a story or an exercise every two weeks or so. Then she would read what the writer turned in, comment on it, and give another assignment, focused on working to help the writer with craft.

Sort of a six-month book camp in craft by one of the best writers on the planet. And she limited it to only a small few.

So we were talking at lunch today about one of the writers I had been working with that had died last September and I had just found out about it. This writer had been working hard for five years, but as some writers do, went from sending me regular updates to just knowing I was there at any point for questions. It wasn’t until I went to check in with the writer after hearing nothing that I learned of the death. I was shocked.

I have a number of writers who are reporting weekly, a few more are occasional, and now a few who have been with me for years contacting me when they have a question. I really enjoy the interaction and often just being a cheerleader.

Kris, in two months plus into most of her mentorship now, with three or four months more to go with the few writers she was working with, and she told me she had had two writers sort of drop out. It is not easy what she is asking and she understands and expected that some would drop away when she started.

She finds working on craft with writers amazing fun and challenging, where I find the interaction of the business and reading sales copy and looking at covers fun. Amazing isn’t it we have been together for 39 years in May?

So I asked Kris if she wanted to add in another writer to work with if anyone was interested and she said she did. And she said she really wanted to get her schedule set through this year because she wasn’t sure if she would do this again. So if someone she is working with already wanted to extend to the end of the year now, so she could plan and know who she is working with, she would do so. Again her sessions are six months long, so extending to the end of the year would be longer than six more months.

So if you are interested in having Kris work with you on craft, take you to a new level, write me at dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com with mentor as the subject line. Cost is $2,000. And if you are working with her and want to extend to the end of 2025, write me and let me know. Cost is $2,000.

And if you are interested in me helping you with career and business and questions and being your cheerleader off into the future, no limitation on time, I will take one more. Write me if interested. And remember, I do not read or comment on manuscripts. But I do comment on just about everything else in publishing and what you need to do to move forward with fiction writing. Cost is $3,000 and I only can take one.

Questions, feel free to write me as well.

STORY #11 ON DAY #11…

Did a little more work on the office getting ready for Monday morning arrival of the Space Opera Craft Workshop taught be Kris. Going to be so much fun.

I also watched a little of both playoff football games, but neither held me.

Then headed to WalMart for some supplies for the office. I am not a fan of shopping there, seldom do but thought it pretty essential that the office needed a coffee maker.

Backed, quick nap, cooked dinner, then recored the Publishing Monday weekly segment.

Then attempting to get to my writing computer with a little more time tonight, I went back about 10:30 and as I half expected fired up on another Detective Crunch story, the new character from last night. My creative voice does that, wants to play with new series characters. This story was called “The Woman Who Kept Shivering.” Last night’s story was sort of an origin story called “The Woman Who Fought Mice.”

Fun Stories.

Got back to the writing around 12:30 am after watching some television with Kris and the story settled in around 2,000 words by a little after 2:30 am.

So eleven stories in eleven days. No misses yet. Now on Tuesday or so I will start doing covers and show some of them here. And Steph did the first three collection covers and I love them. On brand but different.

UPDATES ON IN-PERSON CLASSES

More signed up today, after today here are the spots remaining in the In-Person classes….

• Gothic                 May 5-8th, 2025… 3 Spots Left
• Time Travel         October 13-16th, 2025… 4 Spots Left
• Adventure           January 12-15th, 2026… 1 Spot Left
• World Building    May 4-7th, 2026… 4 Spots Left
• Detectives.          October 12-15th, 2026… 4 Spots Left

But for for a few more days only, as an early-bird discount, the normal workshop fee of $750 is $600. If you sign up and pay in the next few days. Save $150.

Also, for the first time since 2018, we are offering a lifetime subscription to In-Person classes. This includes all craft nd the Anthology workshop and any other in-person classes we do into the future. (This is never given away as a challenge reward on Teachable.)

And credits from Teachable or the Everything Subscription on Teachable do NOT apply.

The cost for a Lifetime Subscription to all In-Person workshops is $3,000. This also includes a Lifetime Subscription to the Study Alongs. Write me if interested and also write me to sign up for any of the In-Person workshops…

And note, Kris and I were talking about doing a class on Licensing In-Person right ahead of the Licensing Expo in late May of 2026. Not scheduled yet, but would be added into the Lifetime to In-Person subscription of course.