Egging Each Other On

I have two dogs. One is a husky, gorgeous and aloof. The other is a little mutt of a dog named Jellybean. Jellybean is afraid of everything and barks at a lot of nothing. She gets worked up about people at the door, whether they are real or imagined. The husky could care less. But sometimes, if Jellybean really gets to barking, Tifa, the husky, will sometimes start to howl along. I think she just likes having a reason to howl and if Jellybean is all worked up, then she might as well do something too.

Writers need someone to howl along with too. We operate in our own heads so much that sometimes it helps to have someone else get excited about what you’re doing and howl along with you. This is why writing groups and critique partners are important. They see what you’re doing and get excited about it too. They howl with you.

Ideas percolate in our heads all the time. A lot of the time, we don’t express them, even if we think they’re pretty gosh darn cool, because for one reason or another, we don’t want to open ourselves up to ridicule. But when you do share, when you do open up, it gives other people a chance to tell you just how awesome your ideas are.

Yeah, sure, they may not all be great ones (like Jellybean being terrified of the ceiling fans), but sometimes there really are people at the door that are worth howling about. I may be beating this metaphor to death, but I think you know what I’m getting at.

The process of writing is a solitary one. So we need human interaction in other ways and bouncing ideas off of each other is a great one. Brainstorming can really benefit from someone else’s perspective. Sometimes it’s not helpful, but it probably never hurts.

So email your writing buddy, tell them about this great new plot you’re working on, and then you both can howl with glee.