What would you do for a friend?

There’s a lot of handholding in the writing world. Authors, although working from home, have a great network available over the internet. Friendships develop and extend to phone calls, personal visits, and emails…lots of emails. It probably wouldn’t surprise you that those of us who write for a living also like talking.

There’s always a lot of us with submissions out, edits to do, cover forms to agonize over, and story plots to hash out. We’re supportive in our own ways. We cross our fingers and toes, make lots of wishes, provide alcohol on occasion, and construct voodoo dolls that look surprisingly like our editors (we love our editors, don’t get me wrong). Sometimes, we’ll even dance naked under a full moon, but we don’t talk about that one much. It’s right up there with the secret writer’s handshake.

So, it didn’t surprise me this week when an author friend said she’d hold her breath for me when I mentioned I have a submission out. Okay, it did surprise me. In fact, I quickly told her that I’d give her a straw.

Why a straw? Because I pictured someone underwater, holding their breath, and she’d need a straw to poke out of the water to breath with, if the killers were after her and she was hiding in the lake, at night, freezing, for safety, while the corrupt CIA combs the bank, searching for the flashdrive that my author friend is clutching in a waterproof baggie in her right hand.

Sorry. It’s how a writer’s mind works. Of course, I had to explain the concept to my breathholding friend, exactly why I was giving her a straw. She quickly understood, right about the time her lips were starting to turn blue.

That leaves me with the question…What would you do for a friend?