FRIENDS & WRITERS

by Karen Elizabeth Rigley

Where did the myth of lonely writers come from? Real life. Probably mine.

The weird hours, concentration and total submersion into our craft take a heavy toll on our social lives. Friends are very annoying when they interrupt a creative roll, so we tend to brush them aside. It's hard to explain why we fail to return their calls, why we don't attend that new movie we've been waiting for, or why we forget to meet them for dinner.

"But I'm writing," we plea.

"So do it later," they reply.

Right? It's difficult for writers to sustain friendships, let alone nurture those friendships. Here's a quiz to see what kind of friend a writer makes. Take it and see how you rate:

(1) Your friends ask you to go to a concert with them. Do you:

(a) attend the concert

(b) beg off to meet a deadline

(c) buy postage instead of a concert ticket

(2) You invited a few friends over on the fifteenth. At eight P.M. you are:

(a) putting last minute touches on the hors d'oeurve

(b) scooping papers and manuscripts off the furniture

(c) dressed in a stretched out sweatsuit, pounding the keyboard and swearing at

the doorbell

(3) Your best friend calls to cry on your shoulder. What do you do?

(a) say come on over

(b) make soothing sounds over the phone while you're typing

(c) interrupt to tell about your latest sale

(4) You're meeting your friends for lunch at a cozy restaurant in the mall at noon.

Noon finds you:

(a) greeting your friends and waiting for a table

(b) in the bookstore across the mall

(c) at home eating tuna fish and polishing a final draft

(5) You've just emerged from a long writing binge and suddenly feel very lonely.

Now you:

(a) go to a movie with a friend

(b) call a few friends and find they've moved away

(c) write an article on lonely writers

Score: 5 points for every (a) answer

2 points for every (b) answer

zero for every (c) answer

22-25 -- TRUE FRIEND (obviously not a writer)

15-21 -- OKAY PAL (you must not have deadlines)

9-14 -- SOCIAL CATERPILLAR

0-8 -- LONELY WRITER

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