How to Win Friends and Influencers

This the hardest blog post I’ve ever had to write. 

Not because I don’t have friends or anything. I have friends, okay? What I don’t have are two functioning hands with which to type. 

A bluebird day. My husband and I would usually ease into skiing with an intermediate run or two before tackling one as challenging (for me, a non-native) as Geronimo—a black mogul run with plenty of unmarked obstacles—but the crowds were particularly dense, in every sense of the word, so we decided to risk pulled muscles in exchange for less chance of being snowplowed by a novice boarder. 

Frailty, thy name is Rachel.

I wasn’t even skiing at speed. When I hit the scraggly shrub half-submerged in chunky snow, the branches clung to both skis and my downhill pole. As the icy ground rushed up to meet me, I didn’t have time to fall the ‘right way.’ A crunch, a skid, and then, numbness.

A lesson in asking for help: when someone approaches you, facedown in the snow, and asks if you’re okay, you say, “No.”

I thought the shock would fade and I’d be able to ski down and meet my husband. But my arm refused to cooperate. Four days later, I still can’t feel the upper half. Poking my own right tri-cep feels like testing steak for doneness. At the on-site clinic, it took two doctors and the most painful five minutes of my life (and I’ve had three kids) to reset the dislocated shoulder joint. I do not recommend this injury. Zero stars rating. But if you insist, don’t dislocate your shoulder at the top of a bumped-out ski run you must descend in a sled, without pain medication.

Here comes the uplifting part of the story. I’d drafted this entry on networking and building community before my injury, and now it reminds me of last month’s post about letting go of expectations. Little did I know how differently my best-laid plans for the beginning of 2022 would turn out; first my family got breakthrough COVID, then I ended up with a disability after my second ski run of the season. Back to uplifting, I promise. See, I knew I had good friends before this, but the outpouring of helpful offers, messages of encouragement and casseroles was overwhelming. Several times, I tried to reciprocate in the moment, offering tickets to shows I won’t be able to attend, or promises to take over the carpool whenever I’m cleared to drive again. People laughed and shushed me. That’s when I realized, these friends are here for me now because I’ve been there for them in the past. They think I’m a nice person (ha!) who deserves care. And that is a much better way to build a network of support than any branding technique.

How to Win Friends . . . to be honest, I’ve never read that book. A person who strives to ‘win’ and ‘influence’ others doesn’t sound like the kind of friend I want to be or have. More like a political candidate. Now, there are ways a writer (or anyone) can be a good literary citizen without all that self-serving smarmy stuff. Need proof? Check out RMFW members like @writerstevens, who dedicates every weekend of his online presence to lifting up fellow artists and spends far more screen time retweeting the victories and concerns of others than his own. Or my @MileHighMFA professor, @erikatwurth, who shares her expansive knowledge of the Indigenous writing community online in a way that is always inclusive and devoid of toxicity. It can be as simple and yet challenging as another great professor, writer and human, @Wanbliweiden, puts it to his students: “Just don’t be a jerk.”  

As a newbie to both the novel-writing world and the social media sphere, I am grateful for role models like these and countless others. I’ve studied and worked in some hyper-competitive arenas where championing peers was not the rule (or even the exception). Regardless of how long you’ve been part of this literary community, congratulate yourself on choosing a predominantly compassionate one.

Speaking of role models, National Book Critics Circle Award winner and poet Ada Limón  recently tweeted, “Trying to be a good literary citizen and trying to protect your heart and your time and your health is . . . hard.” Agreed. That’s why it is so important to be part of a community, so no writer has to do all the supporting, hustling and producing alone. The urge to scroll until I’ve seen, liked, or reposted everything my friends and colleagues are doing often threatens to cut into my writing, exercising or family time. So, I have to remind myself that like every other area of my life, there is no perfect. A little effort is better than none. Engagement doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition, no matter what the algorithms might try to prove to the contrary. Even if you aren’t into the whole online thing, there are ample opportunities for connecting with and supporting local authors, at conferences, readings and workshops.   

Put good into the world. It isn’t transactional, like I used to believe. Lifting each other up is not a requirement of the business, but a perk, not a contract, but a covenant.