Thea Harrison

From Thea:  One of my very favorite things about hosting a Writer Wednesday on my new blog is the chance to share wonderful people with you like my lovely friend Joelle Charbonneau!  Thank you, Joelle, for visiting with us this week.

Joelle is offering a giveaway this week, and details follow at the end of her blog post.

~ ~ ~

A writer’s favorite things…

Joelle Charbonneau

Everyone sing with me:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens….

Okay – enough singing.  (Which is probably the first and only time you’ll hear me say that!)  Technically this post isn’t about kittens or raindrops because while those are both really great, they aren’t really my favorite things.  If I were creating a song about the things that me “the writer” can’t live without topping the list would be buttered (and salted) popcorn, Frosted Flakes, caffeine and friends.

Ten years ago, I was a reader.  Writing my own books wasn’t even a blip on my radar.  I was singing and acting on stage, teaching some acting and singing lessons and reading.  Heck, come to think of it, back then I had never even met an author.  Now I find it hard to believe since the majority of people I communicate with every day are authors.  Including the lovely and talented and so incredibly supportive Thea Harrison!

Writing as a profession is an incredibly solitary experience.  Lots of people are necessary to get a book from a word document on the screen to a book on the shelf.  Agents, editors, copyeditors, sales teams, marketing folks, publishers, public relations gurus, typesetters, printers, cover artists, catalogue creators and countless others are all part of the process.  And that doesn’t even cover the people who need to help get the book into readers’ hands like booksellers, librarians and bloggers.  But before anyone can turn a manuscript into a book or get the book into the loving hands of readers, the book has to be created.  The computer has to be turned on, a new document opened and the screen turned from a blank page into one filled with words.

Facing that blank page every day is wonderful and frightening because no one else can help you fill those pages.  People can brainstorm with you and get you pot after pot of coffee, but the work of typing those pages belongs to the writer and the writer alone.

And it can feel lonely.

Which is where the fabulous writer friends like Thea come into play!  The solitary writer experience never feels as lonely and the blank page as scary when you have friends on the other side of the phone, or on Twitter and Facebook.  It’s wonderful to see other writers banging their heads against the proverbial wall or hitting The End of their manuscript because sharing their battles and their victories helps me know that I, too, will overcome the challenges I face.

And better yet – having writing friends is fun!

So, in this very public forum, I would like to thank my friends both readers and writers on the World Wide Web for their angst, their happiness and more than anything their kindness.  You make being a writer a really wonderful thing to be.

 To express my thanks, I’m giving away a copy of SKATING AROUND THE LAW to a commenter.  I hope my heroine Rebecca Robbins and Elwood the ex-circus camel gives the winner some laughs and a lot of smiles.

**Giveaway ends at 12 noon MDT on Friday, April 20th!**