My day job is marketing at an insurance company. We just had the busiest week of the year for us; it’s a big reason why I’ve been so scarce. What we end up doing is having a lot of our agents back in the home office.
Before we go much further, I need to clarify something important. A day in the life of a typical insurance salesman is…. rough. It’s a lot of time sitting in your car, driving, meeting new people for a short time, and then driving again. It’s a very isolating job for our agents, even our best and brightest. A big part about the appeal of this event we host in the home office is we get this agents out of their isolation, get them in a lot of events together, and that way 1) they can learn from each other, and 2) more importantly, they don’t feel so alone. It’s a chance for them to meet other people who understand what they’re going through; their job has their own unique challenges and as supportive as friends and family can be, if you’re not in the trenches, you don’t understand.
Seeing this event and seeing how happy it made our insurance agents underscored something important for writers: you need to find your own squad. It doesn’t require going to conventions or expensive workshop experiences; honestly, I found the people who are most supportive of me by being on Twitter and helping people out where-ever I could.
And I do have a squad. I’ve had friends whom I can message going “ugggggh this synopsis isn’t working”, and they’ve patiently helped me and answered questions. I’ve Skyped with other writer friends to talk through plot problems they were having earlier in their drafts. It’s. Nice. We look out for each other, we help people, and they also understand the challenges (and, let’s be clear, they understand it way more than me. I’m the newbie). It’s also nice to have people to share the joys and frustrations of this peculiar craft of novel writing.
So, be nice to people. Help people. Make friends, be it online or in meat space, and find other writers at or near a similar level of experience to you and help them. Look out for each other, because writing can be very lonely. But it doesn’t have to be.
OH – one last final thought before I head out to work for the day. Having a squad? It’s fun. It’s super exciting when someone in your crew gets good news and you all get to cheer for them. And, undoubtedly, some of them will have vastly different levels of success than you; that’s okay! You’re a team. You look out for each other. and cheering for your friends makes this game incredibly more fulfilling.
That’s all for today. Cheers, and be kind to yourselves.
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