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I have a friend I met in belly dance class. Not sure how good of a friend, for when I fessed up to having a granny cart for bringing home groceries, she threatened to run me over if she ever saw me with it–despite the fact that my cart is race car red.
‘Twas meant as a compliment. I may be a grandmother, but since, so my friends says, I don’t yet look like a grandma, I’m not allowed to act like one, either. Make that forbidden.
Guess that puts her in the good friend category.
This friend is a non-writing friend. I have a few of those, and while we have many things in common and chat about husbands and children, vacations and gardens, horses and shooze and goodness knows what else, including their jobs, its always a little odd to talk about what I do for a so-called living. Writing.
Unless there is something exciting in my immediate writing world going on, like a book launch, writing can be a boring subject for those not intimately involved. Since I’ve only had one launch, you can imagine how dull those conversations can be.
FRIEND: How was work today, Sherry?
ME: Started out okay. I wrote what I thought was one humdinger of a sentence until I realized I had a participle dangling in the middle of it. I took out the participle, and ended up with a cadence problem that I fixed by trading in a one-syllable verb for a two. But then I had a gerund that seemed to weaken the impact, so I clicked on ‘writing tools’, ‘thesaurus’, and…
You know your friend’s no longer listening when they haul the dental floss out of their purse and try to fashion a noose.
I went for a walk with my belly dancing friend the other night. I’ve been to her house for tea (read: wine. I’m typically a shiraz girl, but she and I have bonded over our common favourite, gewurztraminer) and she’s been to mine, but this was our first walk.
We motored. We broke a sweat. We were breathless but kept on talking.
ME: This is nice. I usually go for walks by myself.
FRIEND: By yourself? Don’t you find it boring?
ME: No. The exercise helps me work out sticky issues in my plot.
FRIEND: Plot for what? Your bid at world domination?
ME: BWA-HA-HA-HA.
I can believe your belly dancing proclivities much easier than the grandma persona. Was that a typo? Snort, snort.
What’s that expression, Elaine? If you’ve got it, flaunt it? Well, I have a belly, so….
Mwha-ha-ha-ha! If she only knew that your world domination will be achieved by sentence structure and character development. Mwha-ha-ha!! Look out, world!
As soon as I master the comma, Urve!
As a woefully delinquent
juvenilebeta reader for you, Sherry, my diagnosis stands. You are a tad comma-tose. [insert Emoticon angel -- O:-)]Loved the dental floss and noose part.
You go girl…belly dancing!
I love it.
Aha! Tracy, is that a dark side I see beneath the classic country charm? Thanks for the visit!
Hmm…doesn’t everyone have a dark side.
You’re welcome
Laughing here. You’ve got the belly moves, Sherry. And after one belly dance lesson (thanks for trying) I see how tricky those moves are.
Come over here to talk writing! Lunch is almost ready
I’m sure you picked up pointers from the genuine belly dance instructor, Sharon. Shimmy shimmy!
Hi Sherry
Do we expect a new series “The Dental Floss Murders” soon?
I like to think while I walk on the treadmill in the morning and try and iron out the problems in my writing. Something about the physical exercise and the fact I’d get hurt if I fall off stops me from bursting into tears!
I’m going to have a “cup of tea”
Cheers!
You are so funny. Sometimes when I start doing the writer issues monologue, my husband’s and friend’s eyes will glaze over. This indicates I should stop. At least your friend has a sense of humor.
Actually, Brinda, she was quite serious. Which, IMHO, makes the conversation even more hilarious!
Glazed donuts are much better than glazed looks. So glad we have our community of kindred souls, a writers world where we understand each other.
I have writing friends and tennis friends, but none I could walk, play tennis, write and have tea with. Or belly dance with
I am still blessed in all my friendships. So if anyone wants to take over the world, I’m in.
Carole, we shall launch a bilingual attack! You serve, I’ll shimmy!
I am all too familiar with the glazed-over-where’s-my-dental-floss-noose look from my non-writer friends and family. I try to save most of that talk for my writing group but we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus over the last couple of months. That means friends and family are hearing more about my writing. This probably explains all of the extra dental floss in the house.
Amen, Tami. I find when I meet people, they are fascinated, as though writing must be so glamorous. They’re a little disappointed that the nitty-gritty involves sitting in front of my computer screen in my pyjamas. Writing is not glamour, it is hard work, and yet, we are blessed to be able to spend our days knee-deep in that work.
Sadly, I have no belly dancing friends to speak of, and my in-person-face-to-face-writing friends are sparse — although I do have yards and yards of dental floss (you, know, just in case.) I’m sure that’s why I go wild for WANA and the joy of daily writerly yak yak with our fine stable of fellow scribblers
The truth is, when non-writing friends ask me about what I’m writing I have learned to understand that “How’s the book going,” doesn’t actually mean “HOW IS THE BOOK GOING?” What they REALLY mean is “How much money are you making.” How do I know this? Because at those times when I’ve bothered to elaborate on how “THE BOOK” is going, from somewhere behind the glazed eyes comes the question, “Uh yeah, nice, but like, you know how much MONEY are you making?” Just pitiful. I think I probably need more belly dancing friends.
Read: “Are you as rich and famous as Stephen King yet?” “Has a Hollywood agent optioned your novel yet?” “When will you be on Oprah?”
Carole and I had quite a conversation with the border agent when we crossed into the Land of the U Hogs. Her mood lightened when we told her we were writers.
Fortunately, time constraints prevented us from elaborating on our respective progress. Otherwise, you might have gotten a call from us. ACK! We’ve been detained! The authorities think we hung that agent with dental floss. It was suicide, I tell you. Suicide.”
Let us be thankful, then, for small miracles.