Hop in the time machine of memory and go back with me to the year 2005.
Picture the place, a small brick-faced house with brown shingles and a strange dark aqua paint on the gutters. The place is central Texas outside Austin. The air is hot, regularly spiking into the triple digits in the summer. The home itself is a small three bedroom affair centered on a tiny, carpeted living room with a forgotten wood-burning fireplace that was never used. Next to the kitchen there is a breakfast nook, and to the side of the glass-topped kitchen table a small rolling desk picked up on the side of the road.
That’s where I was every night in 2005 after the kids went to bed. There was no Netflix, Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook. My internet provider couldn’t have handled streaming services even if they existed. What was available was WoW, Puzzle Pirates, and Runescape. In the evenings I sat there playing games while I waited for my husband to get home from his double-shift. It was lonely, boring, and depressing.
I had a degree in marine biology but my day was spent changing diapers, feeding fussy kids, and staring at the beige walls dreaming of the Some Day when things would change.
Out of frustration I started playing with words again. It felt like I was accomplishing something, a sensation the never-ending pile of laundry couldn’t give me. I toyed with the idea of shopping a book I’d written in high school and was told by a well-meaning friend that publication was almost impossible. I looked up literary agents anyway and found the (now defunct) blog of Miss Snark.
And them I found CritiqueCircle.com, a magical land of forums, stories, and authors.
I found out that despite being a star student for decades I had no idea how to punctuate a sentence or tell a story.
I found out I was a terrible writer.
I kept going back anyway in large part because I made friends there. It started as The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pen and a (not so random) chance meeting with Amy Laurens. We became friends and crit partners. We talked about dreams and families. I wrote stories to make her laugh, and she pushed me to send EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE on a sub call for an anthology.
I met JC Nelson who encouraged me through long bouts of doubt and some how became the voice of sanity during the darkest times of querying books. JC and I queried around the same time and published books together. Our careers changed together.
When I joined Twitter I met more people, other authors and fans like Derek Hawkins ( @WrytersBlockDH on Twitter) who not only shares a birthday with me but who is a d*** fine crit partner (and enabler – he helps me plot murder).
They were there when I signed with my first agent. And when I left my first agent to shop a science fiction novel with more spaceships.
They were there through many moves, multiple new babies, and deaths of loved ones.
They’ve been there for every step of my life for the past 14 years and I can’t begin to tell you how much that matters.
Knowing that someone believes I can achieve my dreams. Knowing that someone likes my work. That’s what gets me through the bad times.
Publishing is a wild, wild place. It’s often a barren wasteland of broken dreams, unfulfilled hopes, and promises that vanish like mirages when you approach. You can’t survive this wilderness without friends who will pick you up when everything else falls apart.
People like to say that writing is something you do alone, and maybe it is for the first draft. For every other step of the journey there are friends. Find some good ones and chase your dreams as you help them achieve their goals. You’ll be a better person for having friends with you.