How to care for your writer-friend, part 1 of 1 million

A few pieces of business.

First, I read a book.

(As an aside, isn’t it crazy how parenting young kids upends every part of yourself you once considered fundamental? I almost never get to say “I read a book,” even though reading is one of my top three favorite things to do. I used to read so much it caused problems in my interpersonal relationships. I used to fall asleep with a book on my pillow every night. When my first son was an infant, I would push him around in his stroller and, when he fell asleep, sit on a bench to read. Now I have to beg, borrow, and steal for reading time. The book I mention in the previous paragraph? I read most of it in the SHOWER.)

The book was an advance copy (#galleybrag) of Erin Somers’s The Ten Year Affair, an expansion of this viral short story from a few years ago. I loved the story and have been jonesing for the book since I first heard about it. Erin is a fellow elder Millennial and a fellow mom-of-a-certain-sort, and I knew I would relate deeply to the story, and I did. I enjoyed it tremendously, and so did both Publishers’ Weekly and Kirkus. Recommend, particularly for the fall.

Second, I turned in the final version of THE GREAT WHEREVER, which Holt accepted (yay!) and transmitted for production (double yay!). And third, I got to see a draft of what will almost certainly end up being the book’s cover, after many weeks of nervous anticipation, and I LOOOOVE it. I know enough to realize that this is, like, one of the absolute happiest parts of publishing, second only to hearing from a reader who liked the final product. I did the work I needed to do, and now the manuscript is on its way to becoming a book.

So today, things are wonderful. But the weeks before this were, let’s just say, pretty challenging. What with the lack of childcare and my new alternate work schedule (under which I’m either working or taking the kids on a summertime adventure, no in-between and no downtime) and the manuscript in need of edits (including, on both passes, at least one significant plot change). I was up against a deadline—and though my editor was very kind about it, trying to afford me as much flexibility as she possibly could, I felt a lot of pressure to keep things in balance and not to let anything drop, including the quality of the book. I will almost definitely never run a marathon, but this felt like one in its relentlessness, in that there was no stopping midway or asking anyone else to take over.

Anyway, I got through it, and I won’t have to personally deal with this again for a while. And you know what? A lot of things came into focus for me through this process. The next time I attempt to write a novel will probably be when the kids are all in elementary school. In fact, I hope a lot of things about my life change before the next time I try to write a book, because this time was immensely adversarial. This felt very much like a book being written in spite of everything. So my new knowledge might not be useful to me for a while. But it will definitely inform the way I treat friends who are writing books (while also working and parenting)! And maybe that is useful to share.

Here are my reminders to self about how to deal with a person who is finishing a book. Remember that this is not me being a prima donna about what I wanted or needed while finishing my book. This is me trying to be the best possible supporter to my hypothetical book-writing friend. Don’t get mad at me.

1. Ask nothing of your friend during their prime writing time. This should be so simple, but apparently isn’t. If you know your friend has a looming book deadline, ask nothing of them during that time. Literally nothing. They have nothing to give, especially if they’re a working parent. If they have a full-time job and kids, they are spending 23.5 hours of the day on those things, and squeezing their edits into the remaining half hour. If you ask them to help you move/edit your résumé/advise you on your love life, they might say yes, but they actually can’t. Just leave them alone instead. It’s a temporary situation, and they will be back when they can.

2. Don’t be offended if they ask things of you during their prime writing time. They probably won’t, because they will be too embarrassed. So if they do, they really need it. Depending on how close you are, they might want anything: snacks, reassurance of their talent, a tether to the outside world. (My favorite thing to ask of my best writing friend is Distract me with some good gossip.) Also, what they ask might be a version of #1: that you leave them alone, release them from their usual commitments. Honor their requests, if you can.

3. Treat your friend’s book deadline like a legitimate professional commitment. One of the big drawbacks of monetizing your art is that the people around you will struggle to categorize it as hobby or job, and will choose whichever is the more convenient option. A lot of people, hearing “I have to deliver this draft to my publisher by Friday,” will respond exactly as though you said “I have to build 20 Play-Doh sculptures by Friday. For funzies, of course.” Most non-writers will not know to respect a book deadline as an actual work deadline. Do better than that! If your friend told you that they’d need to deliver 80,000 - 100,000 widgets by X date in order to collect their paycheck, you would probably respect that deadline, right? Think of their word-count goals the same way. (People struggle with this in particular because they think of delivering widgets or whatever as specialized work, while stringing words together—a thing everyone does every day, in a manner of speaking—is inherently unspecial.)

4. Don’t punish your friend for enjoying their work. Society loves to punish mothers and women generally for doing things they enjoy, and/or to demand that they pay for their enjoyment. I’m planning a future post around that idea, so I won’t get into it here. To keep it on-topic—if your friend is a writer, then they enjoy writing. All writers share, at some level, the deep love of making something out of words. But: (1) that doesn’t mean writing isn’t challenging; and (2) later-stage editing is VERY different from writing. Your friend may have been in heaven while drafting their book, and then found second-round edits to be actual hell. (My experience wasn’t quite that dramatic, but I definitely enjoyed initially creating the scenes more than I enjoyed circling back a year later to comb through every sentence and confront everything that was wrong with them.) With that in mind, try not to minimize their struggles because they’re doing what they love. Refer back to #3—it is a real commitment, even if it stems from a real passion.

5. Don’t forget that they do enjoy the work. I know, so many contradictions. This is a little thing, but I always feel a little pang when someone says You must be so glad to be done with that, or similar. Am I glad to have met my deadline? Of course! But am I glad to be done with those characters, those scenes, that world—probably forever? That’s more difficult to answer. I spent years (off and on) working on the book in a very immersed way, sometimes at the expense of sleep. The characters feel real to me; certain scenes are as familiar as actual memories. I’m happy with the shape of the book, I believe it begins and ends in the right place, but there is a little bit of sadness that comes with turning in a final draft. To say nothing of the last-minute panic a lot of authors feel before sending a book off into the wild. I write because writing is the most fun thing I know how to do, much more fun than staying on top of the laundry and going to bed at a reasonable time. When you welcome your writer-friend back to the real world, do it with the understanding that they might be experiencing some amount of grief.

There they are. Those are my tips. To be fair and not so author-centric, I will add that I have tried my best to uphold my end of the bargain. As soon as the book was turned in, I jumped RIGHT into trying to make up the lost time with my loved ones, even though I could have used a day or even a week to catch my breath. We’re still deep in our Pool Summer; I took the kids for a bunch of extra splash sessions. I read them twice as many bedtime stories as usual. My husband and I finished the first season of Only Murders in the Building. I never borrowed any editing time from my day job, but I redoubled my efforts at work anyway. I am so, so committed to spending only my own currency on this writing thing; and though I’m not always successful, I do try to honor that commitment.

The irony of all this is that the people who really love and understand me know I’m doing my best and are likewise doing my best, while others would be offended even by just reading this list. Again, these aren’t demands. And if you do know a writer on a deadline, you have my deepest sympathy. I’m just here to tell you what I will do, going forward. Don’t shoot the messenger.