Blog 25: Mentorship

    Literal
·     Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties (All included in the mentorship log)
·     Press Ctrl+F and enter 'Andrew Canales' in my mentorship log. His information is there (I do not want to publish it on a public blog for his consideration)

    Interpretive
     What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
   Considering there was a miscommunication about what I could use to constitute as mentoship, I cannot say I had an adequate mentoring experience. What I can say though is that Wordsmitten gave me a lot of experience and taught me much about both myself as a writer and what my goals as a writer are. I have come to realize that:

1. My writing is not geared towards younger audiences. I am okay with this, as long as I can practice my fiction freely. Still, this came as a bit of a surprise because of how young I am. I guess in a sense I didn't take my writing so serious that I thought writing adult fiction would be an option for me. After discovering this, I know that I shouldn't undermine myself because doubt manifests failure more often that fear.

Wordsmitten aside, the experience I gained from attending the Poly Post also helped me understand a few things. It takes a team to accomplish a whole project, depending on what type of project it is. I guess the most important thing I've learned thus far is not necessarily one of my answers, but has to do with time management. When I went to the Post in time to see how they schedule who does what story, there were at least twenty people in the room and one event had to be covered on Friday, yet almost no one had time to cover it and the person who did wasn't allowed to cover it because they had another story to cover.

Applied
     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.
Throughout the year, I've helped quite a few people revise their essay assignments. Turnitin aside, people came to me to ask for a critique and I used what I learned to effectively give them feedback. Instead of reading their pieces in my head, I read them aloud and it helped me see the flow of their story or where they could improve. Multiple people have told me that my criticism is so effective, that it's better than just answering a few questions. That isn't to say the questions don't help, but there are key elements to look for when wanting to give criticism.

Since the beginning of the year, I've learned how to give criticism that is not too harsh or critical. Ultimately, I have learned to give constructive criticism that will help writers better their pieces or understand where their weaknesses are and how to improve them to become strengths.