The Confessional and the Writer
You can’t make it, if you can’t confide the truth to someone
What do writers seek, more than any single other thing, in their working career?
—I’m not talking about writers’ craft, I’m talking about how we make a living, reach an audience, put food on the table. That need is different from our muse, the gift, or a practiced pen.
The answer is this: working writers seek someone “in the know” to confide to. —Someone who will give us a reality check of our business, a guided tour, make sense of it all. A mentor who cracks the code!
This desire for “learning the real deal” — with dignity— is why I started my workshop series this fall. Much as I felt long ago about sex education, I think it’s disgraceful how much artists are kept in the dark, for their entire careers.
Let me describe how mentoring can be “discreet” even with a bunch of people in the same room. I came up with a method to assure everyone’s confidentiality.