Last week I released a short story on my website about loss and mourning (The Other Side of Mourning) and coming out on the other side of it. This year, I experienced the other side of mourning in a different way. My very good friend of sixteen years died suddenly in February. She was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer for the second time in fall 2021. Her first battle came in 2019 after a year of health problems, first with open-heart surgery due to a massive build-up of fluid around her heart, then a hysterectomy, a wound that didn’t heal properly, and then a cancer diagnosis. I was there for her through it all as her companion, nurse, and taxi. Though it was a difficult year for both of us (her much more than me), I was glad we had that time together. Late 2019 through early 2020, she stayed with her sister in New Hampshire to get her cancer treatments. She had chemo and came home. Clean bill of health for more than a year. Then, her CA125 was elevated at one of her last follow-up appointments in 2021 and she was once again diagnosed. In January 2022, she was back in New Hampshire to get her remaining cancer treatment.
I spoke with her via text and messaging more often than we spoke on the phone, but on her last day, she called me. We laughed and talked about her new grandbaby, we talked about her cancer treatments, how they were making her sicker this time and how she worried the blood clot filter they put in her leg in 2016 had shifted. She promised to talk to her doctor about it on her next visit and also to talk to them about how the treatment was making her feel.
Then she died. It was that sudden. In the early afternoon, she was there and before midnight, she was gone.
I found out the next morning via a Facebook message from her wife, “Sayword Loretta passed away last night.”
I’ve never had a close friend die before. I’ve had people I know pass away, but never someone unrelated who I loved like family. That’s what happens when a friend becomes a best friend, isn’t it? They become family. She was one of my best friends and she was gone.
I stayed quiet for a few days. Having experienced the nuances of dealing with the death of a loved one not too long ago, I understood the family needed time to get things in order. I didn’t need to be part of that. Then, I sent a message that was read and unanswered. I waited, lamenting to my husband how I was stuck between two minds, one that knew her family was mourning and needed space, and one that was also mourning and needed answers. I was there for my friend, without question, whenever she needed me, yet I couldn’t find out a single piece of information about the celebration of life mentioned to me.
Still, as someone who isn’t family, I am not entitled, am I?
Eighteen days after her sudden passing, I received a message saying they were still planning a memorial for her. Upon asking if there was anything I could do to help, I was told simply they were still planning and trying to keep the family on the same page.
The single word “family” told me my place. I can mourn her but I have no right to any further information. That was my interpretation. When I received a message later that day from another friend of my friend with detailed information about the upcoming memorials, I was further reminded of my place, a place I’d never stood in before.
I was suddenly the woman standing outside looking in, but the scene was incomplete and blurry. All that was certain from the exchanges I’d had, and those I hadn’t, was that I was unwelcome in this setting. I didn’t have the right to be there.
Even as I type this, I wonder if I should. The interpretation of me as selfish has played a constant loop in my mind since I grew weary of waiting for someone to just do the right thing. Not just where I’m concerned, but also where my other dear friend is concerned. She spoke to our lost friend every day. Every single day, and she didn’t get a call until today, more than a month after our friend passed to let her know what is planned.
Mourning is difficult enough when you’re family and you’ve lost this person you’ve loved for decades, but imagine if you lost them and no one spoke to you, or when you messaged them they ignored you. It’s a complicated and uncomfortable place to occupy.
For me, I don’t look to receive any communications anymore. I don’t want them. I will take my memories and create my own memorial for my lost friend, my lost family. I wish everyone who loves my beloved friend peace and healing. She wouldn’t want them to become stuck in the pain of losing her. She was a religious woman, and she was sure she would see everyone she loved on the other side someday, even though we all hoped that someday was decades from when she actually departed.
What I hope to convey here in this post is not anger or disdain toward my friend’s family. They love her and want to protect her, and that’s all anyone can hope for. The message I hope to send to those who are in the same place I’ve been since February 3, 2022, is, I know it’s awkward and frustrating, and I know it hurts, but give those who don’t understand your position the benefit of time. Do your thing to remember your loved one. You don’t have to stay in place with your grief. Donate to their favorite cause in their name, plant something in their memory, walk or run a marathon in their memory, or just light a candle and tell them how much you love and miss them. You don’t need permission to remember their life.
And remember, found family is just as important as blood. Your sadness is not insignificant.
I feel like I need to preface this by saying that I am not a social media guru. I haven’t quite developed the skills to build my social media accounts into something wonderful, places where hundreds or thousands of people are waiting to see what I will post next just so they have the opportunity to engage with me. I haven’t developed those skills, admittedly, because I have no desire to. Social media seems a very shallow and insincere space, another version of high school where the prettiest people get the most stage time. I couldn’t compete in high school and I damn sure can’t compete now.
Because of this, I try to keep my social media circle or network, whatever you want to call it, small. I have 659 brilliant followers on Instagram where I put in the most effort, and 2,035 followers on Twitter, where I am still largely ignored thanks to the algorithm. Okay, so it isn’t entirely the algorithm’s fault. The people who post more will be seen more frequently. Days and sometimes a full week will pass between my visits to Twitter.
What then, you may ask, is the point of this post? Well, I suppose it’s more of a conversation starter. A topic that I am interested in seeing multiple perspectives of.
In 2020 I had a writing “friend” who I spoke with every day. I’m always resistant to new friendships, especially those that begin virtually, but this person grew on me. We developed, what I thought at the time was, a wonderful friendship. She even went as far as to tell me that I was her best writer friend. At that time, I felt the same about her. But, as is apt to happen, toward the end of our friendship, I began to notice little things about her personality, and she became more comfortable saying things that struck me as harsh or untoward. I didn’t make a production out of them because everyone communicates differently, and many people don’t realize when they’re being an ass. I know I certainly don’t.
Anyway, on Instagram, the land of pictures, I like to share photos of my life; what I’m reading, what I’m eating, where I visit, and, as you can imagine, my family. One day my friend and I were talking over text, and she said to me, “You share too many pictures of your family.”
Now, to be fair, she only shares things to do with writing or whatever other “writerly” endeavor she’s doing at the time on her Instagram. She’s very brand-focused, which is great. For her. I am also brand-focused, but part of my brand is transparency. What you see on my social media sites is who I am. I don’t fake positivity on days when I don’t feel positive, and I have a family, so they appear on my profile. A lot.
Let me be clear here, I didn’t take her words negatively. I took them as her trying to help me in her way. The thing is, as I told her, I don’t want a social media profile that’s only filled with promos of what I’m working on or the sporadic selfie with a big smile where I talk about being fabulous and going out on errands. I want people who come by my profile, whether they’re writers or readers, to feel like they’re looking at a friend’s account. I want them to know that my family is just as important to me as writing, that I despise exercise, and that I love vintage everything. I want them to see my little part of the world through my eyes and know that what they’re seeing is an accurate portrayal and not some staged version of life. I want them to know that I’m insecure and somedays I can’t find the strength to be positive. I want them to see these sides of me because those are the sides I want to see of the people I follow.
If I’m interested in you, I’ll be far more interested in your work.
Now, to the uber-serious, brand-focused individual, this may seem like a bad idea. After all, you’re selling things to people, whether it’s your stories, merch, or the idea that publishing is fun, you are a salesperson, so bringing too much of your personal life into the mix is dangerous. I disagree. As I said above, I want to know what my favorite writers are really like and I want my eventual readers to know what I’m really like. A great example to use here is Sally Hepworth (author of The Good Sister and The Secrets of Midwives). On her Instagram, she does frequent videos with her family. It isn’t strange at all to see her husband or children in her stories. I love this because it shows a side of her you don’t get to see in her writing. It makes her more relatable. It makes her a real person. A profile full of nothing but promos and merch doesn’t feel genuine to me. It doesn’t feel real. If I can’t put a face or a story to a name, what good is the name?
So, what say you? Do you think we can get too personal on social media profiles where we’re also showing our brand? Or do you think being personal is the first step to gaining genuine followers?
As writers, most of us begin in the same place without a single clue as to what we should do to write the story/book, get feedback, etc. When I started writing in the 1990s, I often found myself frustrated because I didn’t know how to get my stories out to the world. Looking back, I know that was a good thing, especially since my writing style wouldn’t be truly ready for another two decades. However, that twenty-year-old trying to get started in the big world of publishing had no idea how to go about it.
So, what did I do, you may ask? I asked people to do it for me.
As a now-professional writer, I can tell you that one of the most annoying things I see is a new writer asking me to do the work they should be doing. It’s easier than ever to find information nowadays. In the late 1990s, I didn’t have access to the internet. I didn’t even have a home computer until around 2000. I did all of my writing on a word processor my mother-in-law gifted me when I lamented over and over again how much more I could write if I didn’t have to do it by hand. Funnily enough, my mother-in-law also gifted us our first computer. A hand me down that served us well for more than six years. I was devastated when we finally had to say goodbye.
In fact, I think it still had my floppy disk copy of Oregon Trail stuck inside when it crapped out.
In the early 2000s, I put so many “feelers” out to other writers. How do I do this? How do I do that? To which I was always met with terse answers that left my baby writer's heart wounded. I didn’t realize then that I was asking another writer to take time out of their work to do mine.
That, my friends, is a no-no.
Never fear, this is why I’m here. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.
Without further delay, here are 7 things you should stop doing right now (if you're doing them).
1) Stop asking other writers to give you plot points. If you don’t know what to write about, that’s your problem. When I’m trying to figure out what to write about, I look to current events that intrigue me or past events that scurry across my mind from time to time. Think about what kind of story you would like to write, what kind of character you would like to write, and go from there. Never ask a fellow writer to give you the plot or stakes for your book.
2) Stop asking other writers to write your story for you. Even if it’s just a sentence or a paragraph, this is a huge no-no. Granted, you will find those on the internet willing to bust out a paragraph for you because they’re such brilliant writers they can’t help themselves, but, often, those writers are just as green as you are. Even if they don’t think they are. Trust me, if they’re writing stories for another writer and they’re not a ghostwriter, they’re green, green, green. Either that or egomaniacal. I think I’d rather be perceived as green.
3) Stop asking other writers to find agents for you. Recently, I saw a post on social media where the author stated they were finished with their book, and they would like for the people reading the post to tell them the best agents for them. Even gave a quick summary of the book and the genre. There are so many ways to find agents. Twitter, Manuscript Wish List, QueryTracker, Poets & Writers, etc. There is a measurable amount of work that goes into finding the right agent to represent you and you should never, ever ask another author to take time away from their projects and their agent quest to find one for you. It’s unprofessional and, to be quite honest, lazy.
4) Stop asking other writers to edit your work for free. I hadn’t seen this for a very long time. I suppose it’s because I’ve focused solely on the group page for the women’s writing group I’m part of. I expanded my horizons some months ago and joined a few other groups on social media. It didn’t take long to start seeing the “I need an editor, but I can’t pay” posts. Look, I get it. Editing isn’t cheap. I know because I do editing work. I know what I charge and that’s well below the average for the industry. I also get it because when I finished my first novel, I couldn’t afford an editor. I had a young family and a lot of bills and just couldn’t, in good conscience, spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on an edit. That was before many editors started accepting payment plans. So, I self-edited and published. The title has since been unpublished because I was nowhere near as good at self-editing as I am now. In short, it was a mess. Still, I didn’t dare ask another writer to edit my work for free. Why? Because I knew then what I know now. Editing takes a long time. Editing a full novel can take weeks, and it certainly takes dozens of hours. Especially if you get a line edit. That time has to be paid for. If you want someone to read your work for free, make writing friends, join a writing group, and then find a few critique partners. Also, learn how to self-edit. I don’t mean like you do now. When you can look at your work and not see your baby, you’re ready.
5) Stop asking other writers to be your mentor for free. This is another thing I see in social media groups. “I need a mentor, but I can’t pay.” I’ve never paid for a mentor. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with and studied with some very gifted writers who took me under their wings. Those relationships aren’t found by the equivalent of a cold call in a writing forum. This is a person you mesh with, someone who is interested in your talents who wants to help you develop them. If you want a free mentor, join a writing group, hang out with writers, go to school. There’s no guarantee you’ll find a mentor that way, but it works for some of us. You can also pay for mentor or coaching services if you have that luxury. There are many talented people to be employed, but never ask them to do this work for free. Would you hang out with a stranger and put hours and hours into making them better at something for free? Chances are, you wouldn’t, so why would you expect someone else to?
6) Stop asking other writers to find online resources for you. This is the twenty-first century. There is no reason why you can’t click away from the Facebook or Twitter window to type keywords for a resource into Google’s search bar. No reason at all. When you ask another writer to take time away from their work to find resources for you it shows that you’re unmotivated, entitled, and lazy. If you want to know how many books self-pubbed authors need to sell to appeal to an agent, go to your preferred search engine and type in, “self-pubbed sales to attract agents” or something of the sort. Don’t ask someone else to do it for you.
7) Stop asking other writers for critique if you have no intention of giving back. The critique process, like the workshop process, is give and take. You give a critique, you get a critique. Unless, of course, you work with the same critique partners, and you don’t have a current WIP to share. Still, you read their work and critique. It’s just good manners. This is the moment you can ask someone to read your work and give you an opinion without paying them with money. You pay with your thoughts on their work. And don’t half-ass this part. It is your promise to your partners that you will read their work as carefully as they read yours and you will provide them with a critique that is designed to help strengthen and improve their work. Otherwise, it’s just a group of people sitting around patting one another on the back. How is that helpful?
So, there you have it, seven things you should stop doing right now (if you're doing them). I know it’s difficult to figure out which way to go in this writing world. It’s a scary place until you begin to understand the landscape, and even then, it can still be pretty damn frightening. There are plenty of us here that are happy to lend a helping hand. We want to see you succeed, want to see your writing grow stronger and you become more confident. That being said, we don’t want to be treated like all we have is time for you. We choose to give our time and we expect common courtesy when we do.
This may sound harsh. Goodness knows, straight-talking sounded super harsh to me when I was starting out. But, in this day and age, when we carry our computers in our hands, it is unacceptable to ask someone else to do what you should be doing. You can ask for guidance and you can ask if someone knows a starting point, but that’s it.
The bottom line of these seven points is this: Stop asking other writers to do the hard work for you.
Additional Resources:
Browne, R. & King, D. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to edit yourself into print. William Morrow, 2004.
Dunham, Steve. The Editor's Companion: Editing Books, Magazines, and Online Publications. Writer's Digest Books, 2014
Martin, Tiffany Yates. Intuitive Editing: A Creative & Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. FoxPrint Ink, LLC, 2020
