I had to laugh when I saw the title of Nancy's post. Last Saturday, the boys (4 yo twins) and I watched the original Toy Story. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed that movie, especially Randy Newman's song, "You've Got a Friend in Me." Nancy Gideon & I are long-time friends. We met when I joined Mid-Michigan RWA back in the early 1990s. We both lived in the Kalamazoo area at the time and often rode together to meetings. Since then, we each moved away, but our friendship has endured, cheering each other's successes, commiserating together, and kicking each other's butt (mainly her kicking me) to keep writing. (BTW, I wrote the above before reading Nancy's post. I'm thrilled at her words.)
You’ve
Got A Friend in Me! And I’ve Got a Sale for You!
Thanks, Di, for letting me invade your blog again to shout
to all within print reach that I have a book on sale!
For those who don’t know, Diane and I have known each other for
decades (we started writing when we were children!). She often credits me with
giving her the push to publish. I say she was well on her way but needed a
well-meaning shove (her books are TOO good not to get into reader hands!).
She’s been with me through the majority of my career, listening to my woes,
sharing my highs, and digging me out of my lows. She’s a Writer Friend.
Everyone should be so lucky. Writing is hard. Writing is solitary work. Writing
makes you doubt yourself, your goals, your talent, and sometimes your sanity.
Every writer needs that someone standing outside their circle of Woe Is Me to
slap some sense back into them. I’m not saying Di actually smacked me, but she
did, I probably deserved it!
When we writers put someone in our Writer Friend Zone, we
expect a lot from them. They’re always eager to read our rough drafts (even
when they don’t have time and never read in your genre) and will kindly tell
you if it stinks. They encourage you when you get rejections. They cheerlead
you through that sprint to finish your W-I-P when you think it all looks like
dreck and want to quit. They’re hungry to get their hands on your next chapter.
They aren’t afraid to tell you when you can do better, reach higher, to stop
whining and just write it down. And they say it with a smile.
I remember when she cornered me out in the hallway during a
break at one of our Mid-Michigan Romance Writers of America meetings to give me
the best compliment ever by telling me she’d bought one of my vampire romances
even though she’d never read paranormal and really never wanted to. But she
bought it because I wrote it and she wanted me to sign it . . . and then she
read it, and loved it! No author ever gets tired of hearing that, but the
biggest compliment was opening up a whole new realm of reading matter to an
avid writer . . . who now writes fantastic Sci-Fi romance!
Words matter. Her compliment made me walk on air. Her
assurances fueled my confidence. And when she struggled, I couldn’t wait to
reciprocate. Because that’s what Writer Friends do. Others can pat you on the
back and pretend to commiserate, but only someone who has crawled through the
mucky trenches of self-doubt that they’ll ever finish a book or publish a book
or have someone other than family buy their book can really understand this
quirky profession we chose. And their faith is manna from Heaven, each and
every time.
Writers share openly and eagerly - of their time, their talent, their contacts,
and their heartaches. And that’s what keeps us going, whether we be working on
that first attempt or our fiftieth. Someone is counting on us, someone who has
walked the walk, someone who believes that the reason we write is because we
can’t NOT write. Thank goodness for those someones!!
So when Diane invited me to visit to hype my book being on
sale, I was thrilled to grab the chance to say “Hey, buy my book!” And also
thrilled to say, “Buy my friend’s books, too!!”
Amazon link: https://amzn.to/36nELUV
Nancy Gideon is the award-winning bestseller of over 70
romances ranging from historical, Regency, and series contemporary suspense to
dark paranormal and horror, with a couple of produced screenplays and
non-fiction writing books tossed into the mix. Newly retired from 20 years as a legal
assistant, she feeds a Netflix addiction along with all things fur, fin, and
fowl, and dotes on her grandguy. She’s also written under the pseudonyms Dana
Ransom, Rosalyn West, and Lauren Giddings.
Nancy Gideon on the Web:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
| Goodreads | Amazon
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