The Besties

It seems that sharing is an interesting and controversial topic in the world of writing. For some people, it is extremely solitary. For others, writing is communal, social, all-inclusive. For me, it ended up somewhere in between. I found myself settling in to selective but necessary input. At the very beginning, it was vital for me to be precious about my pages. I was afraid and fragile and pretty sure I sucked. I showed them to Bestie A, and even she violated my trust by showing them to someone else before I was ready. I want to acknowledge that it happened and that it was a bad day. Showing someone else your guts is a risky thing, no matter who you're showing, because once it's out of your hands, anything can happen.

No matter what the risks, known and unknown, getting input from these few people turned out to be the way it had to go for me. They each brought their own gifts to the table that offered me some sort of necessary perspective. Dan read, but not until I was into it a ways, and he'll get his own post. And toward the end, my world expanded and there was a circle of people who read.

But for the bulk of this process, it was me and the three besties.

The besties are named by the order in which they appear. (Letter designations are meaningless, C.)

Bestie A
Bestie A is my bestie from childhood. She lives far away. All of her support and guidance were offered long distance. Except when I just happened to be on vacation at her house when my editor emailed that she'd finished reading the second draft. Other than that, 3000 miles away. Thank God for the friends and family plan.

When I started writing, Bestie A was in the middle of writing her own novel. She was a bit ahead of me on the path to teaching herself how to write. She was familiar with weird quirks a beginning writer deals with. It was semi-fresh for her. The self-doubt, insecurity, need for constant reassurance, they're all there when you're a new writer, at least they were for me, especially because my main character, the voice I was using to tell my story, the head I was in all the time, was wracked with down-to-the-bone insecurity. Bestie A knew how to lead me out of that kind of thinking.

She talked me off the ledges of discouragement. She helped me find my own process. She said the same things over and over and over and over to me without fail. Her support was of the life variety. I couldn't have done the daily walk without her voice in my ear.

“You are the god of your book.”
“Trust yourself.”
“Dirty it up!”
“You're just in transition. You get weird in transitions.”
“Quit looking for parking spaces and write the story.”

She provided me with constant confidence boosts, took a million desperate, dying phone calls. She loved what she was reading, told me nonstop how good it was, gave me feedback on everything, pouring over lines she loved and helping me step by step through the rough spots. She was present for me in a way I can hardly explain.

Bestie B
Bestie B, the moral compass. Bestie B always brought God back into the picture. She kept me focused on the underlying import of the story, never letting me deviate from its purpose, always reminding me to be true to my characters, that I had a responsibility to them since they had been entrusted to my care. There were times when I tried to deviate because of something one of the other besties said or because of my own selfish desires. She reminded me constantly of the convictions I had about the truth of my story.

We were walking together every morning during this time. At 6:00 she would pull up outside my house. We would walk around the huge park by where I live and I would tell her where I was, what was happening, what I was stuck on or what I had discovered. Bestie B never failed to listen quietly and then tell me the unadulterated, God-inspired truth.

She always helped me remember what a powerful experience I was having. She continually guided me toward the solution, never offering technical advice, just helping me remember I had the tools to find the answer myself. She was my constant encourager. She reminded me to be grateful for the gift and to get quiet and listen when I felt frenetic or unsure.

“The answer is to keep writing,” she would ALWAYS say in those moments when I was full of doubt and fear, discomfort and low self-esteem.
“You think that's the answer to everything,” I would sometimes snot back, but she never quit saying it. (In fact, I just heard it the other day. That's how this blog came into existence!)

Bestie C
The little Bestie. Nine years younger than me. The little sister I never had. I was a whirlwind month into the book when I told her about it. We were sitting at her kitchen table.

“You're writing a book?!” she screamed, slamming her hands down, rising up from the table for dramatic effect. “What the hell?” When she settled back down she said, “Tell me everything.”

So I did. I started to tell her the story, what I knew of it so far. About halfway through she stopped me.

“I have to pee.”

She was gone for a minute and came back.

“Okay. Go.” I started again. “No,” she interrupted. “I still have to pee.”

She had given me a few minutes to think. When she came back I said, “Are you sure you want to listen to all of this?”

“Gaaby,” she said, her voice full of disgust at what I was asking, “I didn't even let myself finish peeing I was so excited to hear what happened next.”

Little Bestie was my emotional barometer. She read almost every word out loud to me so that I could hear the things that worked and didn't work. We experienced together the wonder of what was being created. She has laughed and cried and gotten mad with abandon. She has argued with me every time I have made a major change, cut something she loved with her whole heart, even when she knew it was the right thing to do.


They all adore my characters as much as I do. They are all as invested as I am. One or the other of them has miraculously been with me during every monumental event. I just happened to be on the phone with Bestie A when I got my first beautiful, encouraging, dream-like rejection letter in the mail. I called Bestie C who lives four blocks from me when I got the email to let me know two agents wanted to read my manuscript. She was in my kitchen with me three minutes later, jumping around like fools, laughing and crying and babbling about dreams coming true.

These, and a million other moments along the way.


As I look back on this journey I wonder, how did I get so lucky?