Writers and their "friends"

N. E. White

N. E. White

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Jun 11, 2009
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In another thread, the topic of the support (or lack of support) writers receive from friends and family is fickle, at best, and debilitating, at worst.

Use this thread to vent and rant about the folks closest to you and the horrendous things they unwittingly foisted upon you, the writer.
 
Okay, I'll go first. But this is not a bad thing. It was a moment when I felt, maybe I can write.

As you know, I put together short story anthologies, but I have only once ever included my own story. (I thought I would do it again this year, but I pulled my story.) Anyway, I had to include one of my stories for the 2013 anthology because I wanted 13 stories (luck and the number 13 were the theme for that year).

So, there it was. One of my stories alongside other stories far better than mine.

Eacy year, I send my sister an anthology, but she has never said one way or another whether she reads it or not. After Lucky or Unlucky came out, I was visiting the family (probably Thanksgiving) and we were driving around (probably shopping on Black Friday) and were stuck in traffic. Somehow we got on the topic of that year's anthology and I mentioned one of my stories was it.

My sister immediately grabbed my Nook (I had a Nook at the time and of course I take my eReader with me everywhere) and started reading my story. She finished reading it by the time we got to where ever we were going. When we got out of the car, my mom asked, "So? How was it?" My sister turned her nose up, then said, "Not bad."

I like to think that is high praise coming from my sister. She's a GRRM fan so I imagine she was comparing my story to his work. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

But that's the encouragement I get from my family - reluctant admittance that I'm somewhat competent. o_O
 
I guess I'm to blame for this thread. :D

My immediate family is very religious. My Dad was a fantasy reader, but he mainly sticks with the classics; he doesn't read much of the current stuff. Mom doesn't really read much fiction, and my brother is a pastor; he's also not much of a fiction guy, especially not genre stuff. Dad has always told me that he likes my stories, but with Mom, I have to remind her that they're just stories--I don't actually believe the stuff I write. My grandparents were pastors, or heavily involved in church, so I've always had that pressure put on me by family, which made writing or drawing fantasy and science-fiction difficult.

So in a lot of ways, I'm sort of the odd duck. I love drawing, love fantasy and sci-fi art, and none of my family really had any interest, so I never really felt like that was an option. I got hooked by comics and fantasy when I was younger (my Dad's fault on the latter, as I found his copy of Lord Foul's Bane and Fellowship of the Ring), and I've always carried that inner geek with me. Mom doesn't understand it, my brother doesn't understand it, and Dad secretly appreciates it (which is ironic, as growing up he was the one I had the most issues with growing up).

Sometimes I wonder if maybe they hoped I'd eventually grow out of it. But I didn't.

PS: You're crazy, Nila. Your stories absolutely belong. :)
 
I'm going to start positively, seeing as I blew-off a little steam where this thread had it's conception!

I studied screenwriting back at the turn of the millennium, and pretty much ever since then I've always had writer friends in my real-world environment. Of the people I studied with, I'm still in more-or-less regular contact with half-a-dozen. As a group we were put through the ringer of giving and receiving brutal-but-constructive feedback, something I appreciate receiving to this day (and get satisfaction from delivering, for that matter). The friendship's are at long-range now and I don't share work with any of them very often, but I've some life-long friends there. Forged in adversity as it were!

When I moved to Madrid the writer-friends dynamic shifted online by necessity (to Absolute Write, for a while) until about two or three years later when I joined a mostly ex-pat writers circle; now most of my Spain-based friends are writers (and adding in the population here, whom I categorise as friends as well (you pack of sweethearts*), makes writers a pretty dominant day-to-day majority of my friends, online and off). I'm currently in two writers groups, one that I drift in and out of, but the other meets almost weekly and has a 100% focus on feedback. Once we get the chatting out of the way.

* no facetiousness, I swear!

N. E. White said:
As you know, I put together short story anthologies, but I have only once ever included my own story. (I thought I would do it again this year, but I pulled my story.)
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I noticed that you didn't mention yourself in the announcement, and--
Wilson Geiger said:
PS: You're crazy, Nila. Your stories absolutely belong.
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Seconded. There's a PM in your future, l'il lady.
 
Andrew Leon Hudson said:
makes writers a pretty dominant day-to-day majority of my friends
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Do you find that helpful? I mean, obviously, the activities in your writing group help, but on a would-they-read-my-stuff-even-if-they-didn't-know-me level?

Or do you always think, well, they're just like me...they're gonna say nice things so that I'll say nice things about their writing....
 
N. E. White said:
Do you find that helpful? I mean, obviously, the activities in your writing group help, but on a would-they-read-my-stuff-even-if-they-didn't-know-me level?

Or do you always think, well, they're just like me...they're gonna say nice things so that I'll say nice things about their writing....
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I think it might get too incestuous if that was all there was.
 
N. E. White said:
Do you find that helpful? I mean, obviously, the activities in your writing group help, but on a would-they-read-my-stuff-even-if-they-didn't-know-me level?
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Well, mostly they aren't my readers! But akin to the dynamic of the threads here, they're people with an interest in improving their skills (that's the primary purpose of the other group), a shared interest in the field, etc. So it's a social group, but the range of specifics ranges from a professional cartoonist to a handful of small-press published or self-pubbing authors, article and non-fic writers, and of course people who just come along and do it for fun at this point.

I've given personal feedback to a few of them on novels and scripts because I've done that on work in all sorts of genres over the years, but I don't usually share my work with people who aren't interested in whatever genre I'm working in at the time. There are exceptions, if there's a secondary connection between the person and the piece. But mostly it's a social thing. Writing can be lonely, it's nice to have beers with the peers!
Or do you always think, well, they're just like me...they're gonna say nice things so that I'll say nice things about their writing....
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This group does occasionally do critiquing sessions, based on the format of the weekly group I attend (I carried it over like a virus!). It's a good idea to find positives to raise, but there's no advantage to the author if you wave past any problems you see in their work. As long as it's constructive, then even the strongest critique is in pursuit of the right goal.

However, I never say nice things for the sake of it! Legacy of that Screenwriting Masters, if you don't all come out bleeding and limping then the feedback didn't happen...
 
My husband and children are supportive, as is one of my little brother's who also writes but I don't often share at home.

My kids get weirded out. My brother writes genre and I should look to strengthen that relationship for both of us for a variety of reasons, but of all the people I know only my husband, of near thirty years, can read one of my stories and understand that it's mine.

The extended family and friends mostly give me strange looks or a condescending "that's nice" before quickly changing the subject.
 
N. E. White said:
Yikes! With friends like that... :rolleyes:

Joking, of course. I do like to think I scratch and bruise rather than draw blood and maim when giving feedback. ;)
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Yep. It's very possible and proper to give honest feedback without being mean. :)
Some workshops are toxic others end up producing 'workshop voice' as KKR says.
 
Andrew Leon Hudson said:
Nothing toxic about it.
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Well if it's painful or done in a way to inflict pain, it's toxic. It can be done otherwise ... and NO IT DOESN'T HELP YOU LEARN TO WRITE. In fact it turns many would-be writers off.

Writing is not about BEING STRONG. It's about LEARNING TO WRITE.
 
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