A Mentor's Value

     A mentor's value is high, and blessed is the author who lives with one.
     While writing, I constantly toss out tidbits about my current WIP. My live-in mentor goes off for a while, lets what I said swirl around in his brain, and comes back later with thought-provoking ideas/suggestions/comments. Something like that happened today. Since my mentor knows the identity of my WIP's protagonist, and since my mentor has ideas very different from mine about how this character might think/act/react (which is a good thing....see note below about 'gender'), his comments sometimes seem off the wall; nevertheless, they always stimulate brain action on my part and that generates creativity and plot progress in a direction that had not occurred to me (and that might never have occurred to me without the stimulus).
     What might be the most valuable part of my mentor is gender. Being different from mine, everything the mentor brings to the table is from an opposite point of view. And since I want to reach readers of both gender, and even though I consider myself a writer with insight, I wonder if I could write a book that will market as well with male and female readers without my mentor's input.
     So, if you find a great mentor of the opposite sex, marry him/her.