What do you think of this picture?



Aside from the fact that this is Johnny Depp, I’d say it’s a pretty scary image.



It’s an especially frightening reminder to the writer who suffers from one of the following quirks: (1) laughing manically or (2) rocking back and forth with glee as s/he gets to the really “good part” in whatever story they’re writing.

I mean, even the mildly eccentric laughing/rocking writer, doesn’t want to end up looking like an unwashed nutter*.



So, this is where having friends who care can really save the day.



What I love about best friends is that they’re not afraid to tap you on the shoulder and quietly ask,



“Hey, Paula do you want to, like, comb your hair before we go to the movies? Other people might feel more comfortable around you if, um, if you combed it …at least a little.”



That’s nice, isn’t it?



Seriously though, sometimes, as writers, we allow ourselves to wander aimlessly in the dream world we’re writing about and we almost lose perspective on how reality works. This causes problems not only in our social life, but in our work.



When we write about characters who are very different from ourselves, we, of course, need to clearly understand what motivates them to speak and act a certain way.

The cool thing about having close friends is that we get to observe (and, when appropriate, even outright ask our friends) why they think and act the way they do.  Keeping other people close gives us insight into what makes them tick and into why, despite their flaws, we love them. This enables us to write about realistically flawed characters who are also likable.

I’m finding that a good way to keep friends close has very little to do with Facebook and more to do with picking up the phone and calling them. Even though it’s hard for a lot of writers (who somehow balance a full time job plus their writing work), maintaining a social life is important.

Setting aside at least one day each week to hang out with friends, and spending a couple of minutes, each day, calling the people who matter to us most, is just as essential as writing a little bit every day.



How do you balance work, writing, and managing a social life?





*Did you see how I used a British word right there even though I’m not British? Ack! Help! Before you know it, I’ll have morphed into  Europia’s* biggest star, Madonna.





*Europia is a nonexistent country, uninhabited by celebrities who think they are British, when in fact, they are not British. At all. 

I’m finding that writing with honesty is about as difficult as finding the perfect pair of jeans. There are different jeans for different moods (as well as for differing caloric intakes throughout a specific period of time) and even if I like a pair I’ll usually fretfully gaze at myself in the mirror for a good 15 minutes, trying to decide if my opinion of how I look will match up with everyone else’s opinion of how I look.

When I’m writing, the same thing happens… I’ll pause to review my work and then wonder what everyone else* will think of it.

"Will this offend someone? I mean, it really is what I think my character would say, but what if a reader takes offense?..."

This thought shapes my work more than I care to admit.

It’s embarrassing because honesty is crucial to good writing.

The friend who I feel most comfortable with is the friend who is honest, even when it hurts (and even when their opinion seems flawed).

The author whose work I love to re-read over and over again is honest, even when his/her words occasionally rub me the wrong way.

What I love about some of my favorite authors is that when they write, the walls come down. Barriers created by “politically correct trends” are replaced with an almost childlike sincerity.  

So, I’d like to work on remembering that to write well is to observe and report, as opposed to observing with an eye to manipulate, and then reporting.

We all know that life involves many situations and concepts that are difficult to accept. I find these situations and concepts much easier to deal with when I’ve read a related book written by someone with the decency to bring such  subjects to the fore.

A well- written story does more than pick us up and drop us in a land of make-believe, it reintroduces us to our own heart.


What I mean is that by being honest, writers help (themselves and) the rest of us to grasp key aspects of human nature.

When we understand ourselves, we fare better.

So, I love that most writers, and especially the good ones, are honest, honest, honest.

Nora Ephron was quoted as saying, "That is the truest sign of insanity--insane people are always sure they are fine. It is only the sane people that are willing to admit that they are crazy."

Honesty is admitting to the weirdness that comes with being human.


Some of my **favorite writers are:   Anna Maxted, Carl Sagan, Tina Fey. What do you think about writing with honesty and who are your favorite writers?


Thanks for reading this!!





*everyone else refers to the two lovely individuals who actually read my work : ) and are probably reading this sentence. That’s right, you!

**This list changes every 15 minutes and I wanted to add Shakespeare to it but I thought that would be cheesy. But seriously, Shakespeare never leaves this list.

It’s been said many times that a person should “write what they know”.

I’ve decided to take this advice with a grain of salt.

The grain of salt is this:

“The only real wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” Socrates

I'm pretty sure that not every author who has ever written a great mystery actually spent time with their local police force, working as a detective and male writers who write from the perspective of a female character have, in most cases, never temporarily become female.

Yet, their stories are compelling and believable.

How is this possible?

It has to be possible due to the fact that our brains come equipped with a beautiful thing called imagination!
Imagination, the first cousin of empathy, allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of a person whose culture, background, family life, and every day happenings is completely different from that of our own.

As imagination moves us to"become" this new character, watching the world through their eyes, some part of our own personality begins to mature.


The way to not only write, but to live, in the fullest sense is to occasionally remove ourselves from the skin we’ve grown comfortable in and see life from a different perspective. I thought about this topic for a number of reasons, and one main reason has to do with a few of my friends who happen to be Deaf.


Sometimes, when I’m in the company of a hearing friend and a Deaf friend, as all three of us are together I forget to sign and just start talking to my hearing friend.

Recently, a hearing friend of mine who has a Deaf person in her family mentioned to me how hurtful it can be to completely exclude a Deaf person from a conversation.

Of course I didn’t mean to purposely exclude my Deaf friend, I just got "tired of signing". Even so, by my failure to view the situation from my Deaf friend's point of view I made her feel left out.


Now, I can imagine how she must have felt, watching the two hearing people who she viewed as friends, laughing and talking with each other. If I were her, I would've put on a poker face, so as not to show how dejected I felt, and carefully watched their lips as I tried to make out just what they were laughing about...


Not cool Paula, not cool…so, I’ve got to work on signing more with my Deaf friends... and also on writing from the perspective of a character who it may be a challenge for me to relate to.


This post was soooo random, thanks for stopping by to read it, lol!