I'm happy to turn over the blog place to an old-time buddy I knew way-back-when when I worked at the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. She has made the transition from the biz life to the writing life, and here are some thoughts on how to make that move:
How I Escaped the Feeling of Solitary Confinement
By K.P. Robbins
When I ditched the
office workplace fifteen years ago to write fiction, I never foresaw that a
major disadvantage of the writing life would be loneliness. After years of daily
interactions with coworkers and clients, suddenly no one was around. I remembered
the days when I would have spoken to dozens of people. True, most of the conversations
were nothing earth-shaking, just ordinary chats about work projects, movies we
liked or didn’t, books we read, or the fluctuating fortunes of the Redskins. Real
friends did stay in touch, but with others, once our ties through work
disappeared, so did they.
With just my
computer for company, I couldn’t keep my butt-in-chair for long before feeling the
urge to call a friend or turn on the TV for company. I knew I’d have to figure
out a better way to deal with the loneliness. From my solitude emerged the idea
for a novel, PMS: The Power & Money
Sisters, whose characters would become my imaginary friends. While none were
based on an actual person, they were all amalgams of businesswomen I knew in
the late 90s in Northern Virginia: a never-married woman with a
commitment-phobic beau, a breast cancer survivor, a single mom working in a
male-dominated industry, a free-spirited divorcee and a young MBA hotshot. They
kept me company as I wrote about them, and I no longer felt so alone.
When I began my
next novel, I discovered this feeling of imaginary friendship transferred to characters
totally unlike anyone I knew personally. A California Indian girl, a Franciscan
priest and a Spanish military governor became my new friends as I explored the
complexities and confusions that made each uniquely human.
Despite these
literary friends, I think I would have given up on the writing life if I hadn’t
found a supportive writing group. It took a few tries before I found the group
that works for me. We meet weekly to read our works in progress aloud and get
comments and suggestions. We don’t send written drafts ahead of time, like some
groups do. Reading aloud allows us to go beyond copy editing. When I read aloud
to other writers, I hear my mistakes in a way I don’t see them on paper.
My fellow writers’
strengths in setting the scene with poetic descriptions or devising intricate
plots show me where my own writing needs improvement. The weekly deadline not
only keeps me on track, but also provides the camaraderie I missed. We share
information, commiserate over dashed hopes, and bitchily wonder how certain
books ever got published! As one member
said recently, “I feel I’m in a dark cave, and you are reaching in to pull me
along.” Even after moving away from the group two years ago, I still
participate in the weekly meetings, but now via Facetime on my iPad. The group
keeps me going whenever the odds of publication seem overwhelming.
I keep a quotation
from Isaac Asimov pasted just below my monitor. “You must keep sending work
out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a
drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another
one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success—but only if
you persist.” Persistence is easier, I’ve found, when you’re not in it alone.
K.P.
Robbins
(www.kprobbinsbooks.com) is the author of
The Stonehenge Scrolls, historical fiction, and PMS: The Power & Money Sisters, women’s fiction. Her short
stories have appeared on WashingtonPost.com and in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Imagine This! An Art Prize Anthology 2015, among others. She lives
in Montclair, VA.
