Life-long Friends
Jessie: On the coast of Maine where the weather is heartbreakingly gorgeous!
After nineteen novels, I have noticed a few themes or situations I revisit again and again. One of the most frequent is supporting relationships between women. During the course of my career, I’ve written about sisters, aunts and nieces, cousins, and dear friends. The book I’m working I’m finishing up right now explores several different kinds of female relationships, including mentors, mothers, and employers.
Stories come from somewhere, of course, they do. For me, the friendships and kinships I’ve enjoyed with other women have been an enormous part of what makes life worth living. I have been so blessed to have sisters, a mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. I have loved aunts and friends who are older and far wiser than me. I cannot quantify the value of my female writing friends, including my beloved Wickeds.
This week, my mind has turned to friends who are more like the ones in my Beryl and Edwina novels. As I write this I am chomping at the bit for the arrival of two of my dear friends whom I first met in middle school. They are due to arrive on the coast of Maine for a few days of camaraderie and memories, both old and new. I am almost embarrassingly excited to see them.
There is something about old friends that cannot be replicated. I have been privileged to meet a number of people who have felt like we have known each other for eons. But somehow, there is still magic to being in contact with those who remember you when the world still felt new and all was possible. Who else can tell you, with complete sincerity, that you look the same as you did at twelve?
I’m lucky to have these women in my life. Our paths have been different, but that only makes things richer, and more interesting when we gather at least once each year. And I feel I owe them a debt of gratitude when it comes not only to friendship, as well as for inspiration. My characters, Beryl and Edwina have known each other since their formative years too. They took divergent roads, but have maintained a strong and meaningful connection. I am not sure that I could have written the eight novels in that series without such a rich well from which to draw.
I hope that all of you, our readers, have new, old, and fictional friends who are as valuable to you as my soon-to-arrive visitors are to me!
Readers, do you have old friends who you are thankful for in your lives? Writers, do your relationships impact your novels?
