So I have been thinking about mentors, and then today my friend Carolynne gave me a piece of writing about courage. I think what the ideal mentor does is to give us courage. In Homer’s Odyssey, Mentor is a friend of Odysseus, an older, trusted adviser. The goddess Athena later takes the form of Mentor in order to encourage Penelope.

I have had a lot of good mentors, but some of the best of them came to me because I had the courage to ask for them. When I was embarking on graduate school, and (at the same time — what folly!) trying to adopt a baby, I went in search of women professors who had children. I wanted my journey to be comprehensible to them. I also wanted to have, clearly in view, a model of what I hoped to achieve.

It’s good to have people who will read manuscripts and push you to become a better and better writer. It’s great if you have someone who enables your work. Maybe. But mentors don’t necessarily do the down-and-dirty work, and, in the classic sense, they don’t  do that sort of work. All a mentor has to do is give you something to believe in. Well, and believe in you.  When I look back over my life, I’ve had scores of people who did that for me. Suddenly, I think of my Aunt Evelyn who always thought I was brilliant, even when everyone else thought I was a skinny little fifth grader who didn’t practice the piano enough. As an assignment, maybe we should all stop what we’re doing and write a thank you note to a mentor.

Thinking about Aunt Evelyn, makes me think about food, and — interestingly enough — here’s my desk calendar: “Rich, fatty foods are like destiny: they, too, shape our ends.” And so do beliefs. Have the courage to believe in yourself. I’ll believe in you, too.

I had a very interesting conversation last night about mentors, submissions, and punctuation. My friend, in a moment that sounded a lot like despair, wanted to know where her mentor was. “I can’t do this myself,” she said.

I know of a few amazing mentor stories. A woman whose teacher sent her poetry manuscript to the right editor. Someone who shared her agent’s personal phone number. There’s the inspiring story of Christopher Paolini and his mother with her small press. (And perhaps we should mention all those manuscripts typed by dedicated wives — but that’s history, right?) I have been known to go through a student’s manuscript and insert all the commas. (Particularly around the interjections in dialogue.)

But I also know a woman with an MFA in screenwriting, who until this past year (and she is my age) never sent out a screenplay. I know poets who have never submitted a poem. I am good at submitting poems — thank you, Nelson Bentley — but I have a very hard time submitting my short stories. I get a rejection, and don’t send another story out for YEARS. After being invited by an agent to submit my novel manuscript, it took 2 years before I actually put it in the mail. What can I call that except paralysis?

My conversation was with a very dear friend who has also been my mentor — at times. (I like to fancy that, at times, I have been her mentor.) One concept she has taught me is “aporia.” David Lodge, in The Art of Fiction, defines aporia thus: “a Greek word meaning ‘difficulty, being at a loss,’ literally, ‘a pathless path,’ a track that gives out.” But here’s the real point — aporia points to exactly the place where you must go.

When you hear yourself saying, “I can’t,” then you know what you absolutely must do. For heaven’s sake, do your work. And send it out. It may look as though the path gives out, but in truth it’s just getting more interesting.