Plot Monkeys

This is a re-release of our very first offical Plotmonkeys post…posted by Leslie on April 17, 2006. It’s great enough to be read twice! And for some of you the first time…thank you all for celebrating our anniversary week with us…what a blast!

Of friends and monkeys…

Hi and welcome to our jungle!

I can’t believe I got singled out to be the first blogger here on our fun new site. That’s what I get for leaving my house for an hour right in the midst of a Plotmonkeys email frenzy.

Anyway, it seemed appropriate, given how this whole thing came about, for the first conversation to be about friendship. Yeah, yeah, gag me. Who wants to get slammed with a saccharine-sweet ode to playing nicey-nice first thing on a Monday morning?

Well, those of you who know me probably know I’m not very sweet. So I promise, I won’t turn this into a Hallmark commercial and make your teeth hurt. But I do have a few things I think are worth saying.

First, to be clear, I’m not talking about our best friends from 8th grade who can still make us crack up over shared memories, even if we haven’t talked in a year. Or our college roommates, or our siblings (I have 5 and adore them all.) And I definitely am not talking about our spouses. Mine genuinely is my best friend in the world.

I’m talking about writer friends…who are also something more.

Let’s face it, writing is a pretty solitary profession. We work alone, we don’t want distractions. There are days when I don’t even want to have to look at somebody much less have to actually smile at them. “Have a nice day!” says the mailman? Well, bite me, I’m not having a nice day because you rang the doorbell right when I’d finally begun to plot my way out of this quagmire. Grrrrr…

Even when we’re out and about in the world, a lot of times we’re not 100% present because we’re never able to “turn-off” that writer living inside us. We eavesdrop on conversations and spin stories about the people having them. We overanalyze movies and drive our sig others crazy by always predicting the plot twist. We frown at the chatty grocery store clerk because her incessant talking is interfering with the important conversation our characters are having in our heads.

In essence, we exist in the worlds we create every bit as much as we live in the real one.

Few people understand…unless they live the very same madness. So is it any wonder many of us count our most important friendships to be with other writers?

But even among our writer friends, there are different levels of friendship. I bet everyone has a bunch of what I’ll call MySpace friends. You’ve heard of MySpace haven’t you? Teens ask other teens if they can be their “friend” so they can get a sneak peek into a closed profile. And parents just pray the next anonymous “friend” isn’t really a twisted, perverted old man pretending to be a 16 year old boy. (By the way, for the parents who are brave, a good way to keep an eye on your MySpace kid is to create your own profile, make sure your kid knows Big Mama is watching, and then watch!)

Back to the point. MySpace friends…we all have them. They’re the familiar initials or first names next to a post on a message board. The ones who can make us laugh on an open loop or blogsite. The ones we feel we know, even if we’ve never met them in person or heard their voice (and probably never will.) Good for a smile. They’re safe, non-judging. A solid foundation. Not someone you’re going to pour your heart out to and maybe not even someone you email with directly, but someone you feel you might very well like a lot if you didn’t live a thousand miles apart. And if you knew them by some name other than RomRdrinCA.

The friendships stack up from there. There are friends on closed author loops–you know them a little better. With the screen of privacy and loop discretion, the gloves sometimes come off and blunt hilarity can commence. You care about each other, you kvetch and joke and share stupid videos and mourn when someone experiences a loss. You email and ask about each other’s kids and pick up and call once in a while when you sense someone is having a tough time.

Then come the conference friends you do meet face to face once or twice a year. I have quite a few of these (and most of them, like the Temptresses, overlap with my closed loop friends.) They’re people who mean a lot to me even though I don’t see them often. Every time I do, it’s like that friend from high school, we pick right up where we left off the last time.

There are chapter friends you see or talk to every month. Critique group friends you see or talk to every week. Writing partners you see or talk to every day.

And then there are friends like the Plotmonkeys.

You do live a thousand miles apart. You did first only become aware of each other as a name on a message board. You perhaps shared some funny exchanges on a closed loop and then via email. You did only meet in person once a year at a conference.

And yet…something was different.

If you go to the FAQ section of this website, you’ll see how we all met. But those little descriptions don’t really touch on how the four of us just seemed to meld effortlessly together.

We complement each other–balance each other–not just in our writing, but in our lives. We’re an incredibly good karmic “fit.”

One of us is the emotional one–thoughtful, caring, sensitive. Incredibly generous. For someone so talented and so successful, she can be easily hurt and unfortunately she has been targeted in the past because of her success. We rally around her, we encourage her, we support her and, when necessary, we try to protect her from the petty jealousies thrown in her direction. After all, attack one monkey and you’re attacking us all…

Another is the sensible one. Despite being wonderfully creative and imaginative in her writing, she can always cut through the nonsense and get right to the core of an issue, and, usually, come up with a solution. She’s a problem solver. She never gives up. She’s a voice of calm and reason but she never backs down from what she believes is right. I think of her as the mother of the group (even though she’s the youngest…)

Then there’s the fighter. She’s fierce, she’s tough, she can dish it out and she can take it. She’s got opinions–usually very good ones–and she’s not afraid to share them. But really, we’ve come to understand, she’s a roasted marshmallow. Hard and crusty on the outside–when necessary–but so soft and sweet in the middle. You’ll never have a more loyal friend. If I ever fly into battle, she’s my wingman and I’m hers.

And there’s the wise-ass. Umm…that’d be me. Smart comments and raunchy jokes come flying out of my mouth at the speed of light but my monkey pals can always see through them and know when I’m trying to cover up my own insecurities or make light of something that truly hurt me. And they feel free to tell me to shut up and get serious if the situation demands it.

See what I mean? We just…fit.

So here’s to the MySpace friends and the loopy ones. To the conference charmers and the chapter buds. To the critiquing saviours and the plotting pals.

And to the monkeys . I hope each of you has a few of them in your life.

Why don’t you pull up a chair and talk about yours…