Friday, April 16, 2010

Mentors, Mentees, and Statues on Buildings

Firstly, have you guys heard about this? It's the Event Horizon exhibit that's up around Madison Square Park until August. Though, up until I looked it up on the Internet just now I was calling it "that naked statue thing on the roofs around Madison Square Park" because I'm so cultured. Anyway, I'd heard a bunch about it and thought it was kind of crazy because these statues are poised on the edge of these buildings, including the Empire State Building, and given that someone just recently jumped from there, I thought - may be a little insensitive? I mean, if I was one of the people down below who witnessed a jumper, I might be a little skittish for the rest of my life.

Schmegan and I took a walk through the park yesterday and she pointed a lot of them out to me. It's totally insane and sort of awesome. I got a little dizzy from staring at the tops of buildings. But it was still awesome. On my way to Penn last night I totally became the person that I hate whilst staring at the top of the Empire State Building. I walk up Broadway towards 31st and you get a really great view of the very top of the Empire State Building from like, either 29th or 30th. I desperately wanted to find the statue and in my desperation I became that tourist that stares at the tops of buildings instead of down at the sidewalk and I FULL ON WALKED INTO SOME GUY. Awesome. I didn't even get to find the statue.

Just found this. No wonder I couldn't see the gd thing.

Moving on.

I went to lunch with one of the Editors for our trade imprint. Because I do co-editions and co-editions is a totally different beast from regular old publishing, I had a lot of questions to ask her about what she does and how she got to where she is (she was promoted to Editor at the same time I was promoted. Yay!) I learned a lot from her about the importance of establishing relationships with agents and of actually reading and providing feedback on the manuscripts they send - this makes them feel loved as well as giving them an idea of what you are actually looking to print, making the relationship even better. I learned about her entire process, start to finish and how it takes a good amount of time, sometimes years. (we are constantly banging it out here, since what we create already exists and the only thing we usually change is the format, we're able to work on at a quicker pace and with more titles.)

I also learned that a mentor program exists here at my company. And I'm super excited about it. She (Editor) is the mentee of one of our sales people, as she wanted to learn more about sales. She's been able to go out on sales calls and everything. Super cool!

I contacted HR about the program yesterday and they'll be starting up a new round in a month or two. I really want to participate. I want to do mine in Production and I know exactly who I want to be my mentor. He's the best of the best. This little Production obsession of mine is something that no one really understands. But, I'm thinking that I really want to explore Production as one of my future options. Though I always thought I'd be more keen to stay on the creative side of things, I like order and control. I think it could be right up my alley and I think getting a mentor who is the best of the best in that department could immediately answer my question regarding - is this what I want for my (not immediate) future in publishing?

Mentees. The fresh maker.

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