Berin Kinsman

Today’s guest blogger is author Gloria Weber, who blogs about writing at http://gloriaweber.wordpress.com/.  I personally recommend her novel Gaslight Demons, the tale of an occult crime scene investigator in a world where magic has replaced science. I’m also a fan of her roleplaying game, Moirai, which uses a magic “fate ball” instead of dice.

From my back-in-the-area-BFF to the California girls three time zones away, my friends are not only awesome, but they’re also a haven of creative goodness.  They push me to do things I normally wouldn’t.  And they are some of the most supportive people I know.  Quite honestly, I’m really lucky to have them.

My friends say the awesomest things like, “Morning, strawberry puffin.”  Which I love, because that gets me imagining a strawberry puffin and how I resemble one.  In addition to providing me a humorous start to my day, this helps me as a writer, because it jump starts my creativity.

Sometimes they say awesomer things like, “We didn’t time travel.  We just went to the future.”  It shouldn’t be a surprise that I save these words.  The words live written on the margins of papers I have scattered about.  They remind me of moments that inspire scenes or characters in my own work.  And, once in a while, they are used word for word.

These wonderful people give me so much with just their words, but they don’t stop there.  They feed my other creative impulses too.  My friends push me to be… mischievousness?  Though, in my defense, this appears to be genetic.  Why else would my brothers join in on convincing my daughter we were going to a zombie farm to go kill/feed zombies?  (We were actually going to Disney.)

My friends are responsible for the execution of half my evil ideas.  Some are more direct and say, “Do it!”  This one time, my friend’s sister gave me a photo of him, so I could paste his head over those of Japanese school girls.  Other friends are more tricksy.  This one guy warned me not to draw anime hair on his picture.  I, unable to ignore the challenge, naturally did.  Scary part was, he told me not to so I would.  Yeah, he wanted me to draw bright green pigtails on his picture.

And I’d be stupid to over look the obvious things they do.  I’m lucky that whenever publishers release my work, my friends are not only quick to wish congrats, but they also spread the word.  I don’t expect them to do that, much less do I expect them to the buy books I’m in.  Still, they do.  It floors me every time.

As a writer, I spend a lot of time imagining people in my head.  Given a hundred years, I could not imagine up cooler or more wonderful people than those I call my friends.  I am grateful for their presence in my life and the help, intentional or not, that they give me on my journey.