Happy National Thank Your Mentor Day!

By WB Intern Cathy Sheafor

We writers are no strangers when it comes to having a mentor. This National Thank Your Mentor Day, WB Intern Cathy Sheafor wrote a brief think piece in honor of her very own mentor, Dave Gould. We encourage everyone who’s once been the mentee to give thanks to their respective mentors!

I had my first writing mentor in high school. He was my European history professor, a fun-loving, dedicated educator known for his creative accessible teaching style.  

He assigned a two-page essay comparing two periods in history using the comparison framework of a well-known historian. 

I loved history and the class, so I worked my tail off on my analysis and, with confidence, I turned in my paper. 

My professor returned it with a note to rewrite it. Of course, there were comments that identified flaws in both my analysis and my writing. I had never been asked to rewrite something in my life. Crushed, I went home, and wrote and wrote and wrote.  I was certain I had addressed every comment provided by my teacher and I turned it in a second time. 

He returned it with new notes, including one that instructed me to rewrite the paper a second time.  Again, I went home, sat down, processed his comments, then wrote and wrote and wrote.  And again, I was convinced I had addressed all of my professor’s comments. I was certain it was worthy of an A. 

He returned it a third time with new comments and instructions to rewrite the paper AGAIN.  After a flood of tears, I took another stab at addressing his comments and I turned it in for the fourth time. 

When I handed it to him, he asked me what I had learned.  We had a long conversation about all that I had learned and then I asked him when he would give me my grade.  His response was, “You don’t need a grade. You learned all that you needed to learn this time around.”    

He taught me:

1. the importance of receiving feedback with an open mind,
2. the reason for knowing your vision before seeking to convey it, 
3. the value of digging deep and looking at one’s writing objectively,
4. the import of pursuing elegant clarity in one’s writing, 
5. the worth of balancing line-level writing and big picture thinking,
6. the power and precision of word choice, 
7. the joy of a strong verb, a perfectly placed adjective, and a marvelous metaphor, 
8. the benefit of reading one’s work out loud, 
9. the pleasure in sentence variety, and 
10. the significance of persistence. 

And, most of all, he taught me the value of believing in one’s self. For that, I am forever grateful. 

Thank you, Dave Gould. You gave me the greatest gift anyone could have given me in my writing journey — the knowledge that I can challenge myself to learn more and grow more. Every day. 

Reach out and thank someone who has changed your writing life.  

About the Author

---

Cathy Sheafor is a writer from North Carolina. She is a graduate of Duke University and Washington University School of Law. She is currently working on picture books and her first middle grade novel. Apart from writing, Cathy loves swimming, hiking and traveling.