Disclaimer: This blog makes money through affiliate links. It costs you nothing but means we get a small amount to help keep the blog going. All affiliate links are denoted clearly with the asterisk.

You’ve decided to book a writing mentor session to build your freelancing career. What do you need for your first session? What should it look like?

Opting to hire a mentor to build your writing business is an excellent decision. Just think about how we learn as we grow up. There is always someone we turn to. It could be a parent, a teacher, or someone higher up at a job we have. We want to learn from other people, figuring out how to do things quickly and avoid the mistakes overs have made.

So, it makes sense to hire a writing mentor. Now you’ve done that, you’ll be getting ready for that writing mentor session. What do you need to bring with you? What should you expect to happen?

Your writing mentor will help you navigate this

If your new mentor wants you to bring something, they are certainly going to tell you. This could be to come with some niche ideas in mind, or it could be with a breakdown of what you’ve already done as a writer.

However, as a first session, there are chances that you won’t need to bring anything but yourself. You’ll just want to make sure with your mentor personally. There’s nothing wrong with sending an email to find out before turning up.

Now it’s time to get an idea of what you should expect during your first session.

Your first writing mentor session is to get to know you

The first mentoring session is a chance to get to know you. The mentor will want to know how far into your writing career you are and what your goals are. Some mentors will cut this out by sending you a few questions beforehand. These questions will usually give you a starting block for the first mentoring session.

Don’t worry about this part of getting to know you. Just prepare five minutes to tell your mentor what you would like to achieve over the next month or so, and where you’re starting from right now.

It’s also a chance to get to know the mentor, so prepare a few questions. One mentee asked me about my experience starting out to see which path I took to make writing a full-time business.

What do you want to gain from the sessions?

Mentoring is different for everyone. You may want to learn how to be a writer, while someone else may hire a mentor to get more productive and give them a kick up the proverbial.

It’s time to think about what you want out of your sessions. Your mentor will want to know to help plan the next session with you, or to know whether the time will be spent critiquing your work.

Remember this is your money, so you deserve to have sessions that lead to what you want out of them.

What do you want it to be?

To honest answer is your first mentoring session will be whatever you want it to be. If you want to spend the time getting to know your mentor, then use it like that. If you want to get right stuck in with information, then that’s entirely up to you.

The point that I will keep making is that this is your money you’re spending. It needs to be spent in a way that is valuable to you. We’re all different. We all have different goals and want different things.

Make sure your first writing mentor session is spent the way you want. Most mentors will start with a “get to know you” slot and then want to find out what you want out of these sessions. From there, you can discuss whatever you want.

MORE: What is a freelance writer’s idea bank?

Would you like to learn more about hiring me as a mentor. Feel free to drop me an email.