The Mentor Hath Spoken!

Earlier today my mentor sent his responses to my packet.  I sent the packet last Thursday and he got back to me on Monday- I think that's pretty awesome.  Contained within his response was a fantastic mass of constructive criticism.  He explained that he is blunt when necessary but that he keeps in mind the feelings and time invested in the student's work.  Well, I found everything he said to make sense.  I will be taking most, if not all, of his comments into consideration as I edit and rewrite my creative work.  It will be stronger for it and his comments have done something else wonderful: they've got me right back on the writing wagon.

Today, I wrote at home for a while and around six in the evening Hannah and I ran to the library to enjoy two hours before closing time of peace and concentration.  I discovered new things about Simon today - mainly that he has a nervous condition that can bring on panic attacks - as well as further shaped a background character.  I'm going to put pieces together differently and hopefully have two full chapters (and my chapters tend to be on the longer side, sadly) all spruced up and polished and ready to be sent back to him in March. I want to get him some new material to look over as well.

One draw back on the response was that I apparently sent in my two critical analyses as read only files and so he wasn't able to give me line by line feedback as he was with the novel work.  I have several questions that I will ask him probably prior to working on my next critical pieces, but also some comments and questions that I'll include in my cover letter.  It was so wonderful to hear his thoughts and see where I need to rework things in the story and where I need to manage my words better.  Back to writing for me.  This week will be one of intense reading and pumping out new material as well as sharpening the old.

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