I am so lucky. I have a husband who supports my ambition to write words for a living. I have kids who haven’t been incarcerated or strung out on drugs (teenage pregnancy happened, but we survived.). I have a nice home… good health, and a number of other great things to be thankful for. But today, I’m feeling lucky to have a great tribe of women in my life who can provide advice, laughter, support and a smiling face to share a cup of coffee with.

Today, I was able to enjoy a couple of hours across a table from my friend, Angie, who is not only a great writer, but a fellow fan of literary fiction, biographies and Robert Downey, Jr. There are not many strict requirements for women in my tribe, but being a fan of RDJ may or may not be one of them. I mean… come on…

Anyway, Angie informed me recently that her graduate work was done on subjects that I will be researching for my novel, so we got together today to talk about freelancing, her new job, the hilarity that is teenage kids who think their parents are idiots. Then we also discussed sources I should search for information about traveling preachers in the early part of the 20th century, farm life in the Midwest and current events in the 1930s. You may be surprised to hear that Mr. Downey was not mentioned.

The limb I am going out on is the limb that one has to go out on when one decides to write a novel. Especially, I would imagine, a first novel. It takes a pretty significant amount of hubris for anyone to think that they can put 70,000-110,000 words into narrative form, send it off to an agent and/or editor, and that the agent/editor will think their words are worth reading, AND THEN, that they are worth hiring a designer to create cover art for, and pay people to market and write reviews of, and send the author out on a tour to support, because OTHER PEOPLE will want to spend upwards of $25 to read them as well.

Typing that made me break out in a sweat.

Okay, not really. But I felt that I should be sweating… I probably would be if it weren’t so cold in my house…

I have what I think is a great foundation for a novel, and I’m excited about the characters I’m getting to know and the research I’m embarking on, but having friends who are willing to read my work when it gets to a point that it needs outside eyes to see it is invaluable. And not only are they willing to read it and love it and encourage me when I get frustrated (I’m sure it will happen at some point – probably many points), but they are friends who will read critically and tell me what is working, what’s not, what is pure crap, and what is salvageable. I’m so lucky to have these friends on the limb with me.

And because you can’t have too much of a good thing…

Also, have you seen this video??? What was the original topic of this post? I feel I’ve gotten a little distracted…