The application window to be a Pitch Wars mentor for 2021 has opened. With that, several people have reached out to ask me if I’m planning to apply. I’m not. So I thought I’d explain my thoughts on that publicly.

First, and most important, my decision has nothing to do with Pitch Wars itself. I think it’s a fantastic program and the people running it are absolutely first rate. I believe this so much that while I’m not mentoring this year, I’ll be working behind the scenes, applying whatever minor talents I have to help continue the program’s success.

Warning: I’m going to talk a lot about me from here on out. So if that’s not something that interests you, it’s not going to offend me at all if you turn back now. Before you go, let me say that if you’re considering being a mentor, you should definitely do it. You can apply here.

What will I be doing? The short answer is, whatever they ask me to do. The slightly longer answer is this: I’m always open to sharing whatever I know with people in the Pitch Wars community. I have some knowledge of the adult SFF world, and I’ve built up some contacts over the years. I’m always happy to share those with other mentors, former mentors, or former mentees who reach out. That’s not going to change.

So why am I not going to mentor? It’s an old cliché, but it’s not you, it’s me. Every year when the submission window opens, you’ll see mentors say how excited they are to dive into their entries. And they mean it. There’s this huge atmosphere of excitement. And they have to be, because it’s a ton of work. But when you are excited to do it, it doesn’t feel like work. Plain and simple, I’m not excited for that anymore. I used to be, but after doing it four times, that’s worn off. And Pitch Wars entrants deserve mentors who are excited to read their submissions.

Why am I not excited? Well, the mentee selection process has always been stressful for me. First, it’s just a lot. I get about 200 entries, and you want to give each of them the time it deserves, but there’s only so much time. Second, I hate having to judge. In the end, what you tend to get is 3 or 4 books that really stand out as great, and about 25 more that fall into the next band…the band of ‘hey, this is good and I could work with it.’ Both of those categories are hard for me.

The first one — the really great books — as you might guess, most of those are going to attract attention from multiple mentors, which means you either have to talk other mentors out of them or, more likely, fight for them. Go to war. And I’m just not going to do that. There are a lot of reasons why I won’t, but I’m only going to share one. Wars add to everybody’s stress: The mentors are stressed and the mentee who has to choose between them feels stress. And I just don’t want to add to anybody’s stress.

The second category is just as hard. Because when there are 20 books that I’d be happy to work with, how do I choose? It’s the same reason I don’t like to go to restaurants. Too many options. Just bring me some food–I’m sure it will be great.

I love working on manuscripts. I love working with developing writers. I just don’t like the process of choosing who to work with. If someone just introduced me to my mentee and we got to work? I’d be all over that. Alas, that’s not how it works.

So I’m not doing it, but I’m telling you that you should. Here’s why. First, it’s a great opportunity to meet other writers. The other mentors, especially in your genre, are your peers. I’ve met authors through Pitch Wars every year, and I still have relationships with many of them today. Having people you can talk to about writing and the business of writing is invaluable. Second, if you haven’t done it before, it will help you become a better writer. It forces you to think about a lot of different stories and how to make them better. More than that, it forces you to explain it. And to explain it, you really have to understand it, perhaps at a level that you don’t right now. It’s easy to look at something and say ‘this doesn’t work.’ It’s harder to look at it and say, ‘this doesn’t work, and here’s why. And, oh, by the way, here’s one way you can fix it.’

I’m rambling, and I’ll finish up soon, I promise, but I think the final question is this: What am I going to do instead? I don’t know. I’ll certainly keep giving back to the writing community, and given my current place in that community, I’m sure I’ll get opportunities. I’ve found myself advising several debut authors lately, and I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction out of that (and hopefully they’ve found it productive as well).

I’ll close with this. If you’re thinking about Pitch Wars, go for it. I was a mentee in 2015, and it was one of the best things that happened to me. Just yesterday I was chatting with several of my classmates, 6 years later, as they came together to support one of our own. It’s that kind of family.