My little series on influential people in my writing career wouldn’t mean nearly as much if I didn’t touch on my second biggest supporter – my editor and best friend.
Who’s always in your corner cheering you on?
That December that I began writing again, the first person I let see my work, was my best friend. It was bad. It was clunky and I hadn’t even begun to plot anything out, I just started throwing words onto the page. I made myself write and write and write. I had to find a groove, a voice, a meaning. The only way I could do that was to produce and produce I did. No matter how awful it was, she read it, and she encouraged it. Next to my husband, she was my biggest supporter. She was the reader I wrote for, the voice I cared about, the one who kept me going.
Find your cheerleaders and don’t let them go.
She listened to me. She read me. She took me to see my hero’s home. She wouldn’t let me give up and she puts up with a lot of nonsense.
She has read and edited every word of Dandelion. She’s helped me create the characters and town. She’s helped me figure out backstory and added tidbits to each character. We used to spend every Wednesday afternoon together and talk Dandelion for hours. Sometimes I worry that she secretly hates my writing and what I make her help me with. Other times I think she knows them better than I do. But mostly I love her for doing this work with me. I really couldn’t have finished two books without her. I would have given up a long time ago.