You Should Write a Book With Your Friends

Let's make art silly and social.

I feel like whenever a writer is depicted in the media, they are a solitary creature. A well-read, misunderstood genius who retreats into a mahogany office with a Big Ol’ Desk that has a Very Important Notebook/Computer which is filled with Genius Things That No One Understands. Their family contacts them through text or carrier pigeon but they’re Lost in The Flow, which inherently centers them as an extreme introvert that prefers to linger with their own thoughts. 

To that I say: good for you, but not me bitch!

I’m a certified yapper who hates doing things alone. I have deliberately put off buying food just because I wanted to wait until someone could go to the store with me. I go to great lengths to plan trips and sleepovers and movie days and concerts with my friends because there’s nothing else I would rather be doing. My social calendar would make an introvert shit their pants (probably). 

My friends K, M, and I are writing a story that is, at its core, really dumb. We sat on the enormous, comfortable couch (I daydream about that fucking couch) at K’s Parents’ house--

(Okay, I feel like I need to add context for being at my friend’s parents’ house. I am not 16 years old, I am 28. K’s parents live a solid 20 minutes from our favorite beach town, her mom makes a bangin’ charcuterie board, and that fucking couch is amazing.)

--Anyway! I don’t know how exactly we got on the topic, but we started talking about how hilarious it would be to write a whale-themed romance murder mystery novel (because, beach). Then we thought of an absolutely genius title, then character names, and before we knew it we were creating an outline document that we were word vomiting a shaky little plot onto. 

The book is called Heartpooned. It is ridiculous, it is my finest work, because I’m writing it with the people I care about and love so deeply.

Heartpooned is about a girl named Harper who goes on a whale watching cruise with her best friend, when all of the sudden the Captain is murdered via harpoon (drama). Harper is an insufferable aspiring journalist who is nosy, so she is poking her nose where she shouldn’t. This is to the chagrin of the sexy-yet-anxiety-ridden First Mate, Finn. The two, alongside the other cast of characters on the boat -- including a cook named Cook and a cat named Greg -- work to solve the mystery while avoiding (and failing) to fall stupidly in love. 

When we write the book, we each typically take on a chapter at a time. This means there might be three people working on different parts of the book all at once (I just know there’s a writer out there dry heaving after reading that sentence). 

We do not write the same way. I’m a big fan of dialogue, and I admittedly suck at description, it’s my least favorite part of creative writing. K loves description, but sometimes gets hung up on what to have characters say. M can do both, but she shines particularly at adding in the most clever, eye-roll inducing fish puns. None of us critique each other’s writing, rather every writing session is spent appreciating our writing differences and leaning on each other for help. I constantly pout at K and beg for her help with description. M can break a writing slump in our sessions with outlandish linguistic creativity. I like to think I help by writing dialogue quickly, knowing that we can edit away the garbage in future drafts. 

We don’t have big aspirations for the book. We started it November 11th, 2021 and as of right now it’s 28,202 words. I know this isn’t impressive to many people. It has been almost 3 years. But, we can only write Heartpooned authentically when we are all together, usually over a long weekend. I’ve tried writing the book without my partners in literary crime, but it feels inauthentic and sad. However, we have repeatedly joked that if we ever made Actual Money from the book, we would go on a trip to Disney World (we are not holding our breath on going to Disney World). 

Writing with other people requires you to be vulnerable in ways that are different from writing alone. I need to push back the thoughts of “what if they don’t like this idea” and just accept that if my friends think it won’t work, they will say so. That’s not an insult or a criticism, it’s just having a second and third eye on the plot. The act of writing becomes a constant stream of conversation, both what we are talking about and what we are typing. Nothing is ever done without the knowledge of the other people in the Google Doc, and why would it be? The joy comes from creating alongside one another. Taking on a solo mission would be pointless.

Everytime our writing trips end, I’m profoundly sad. I don’t see my friends as often as I’d like to anymore, because we are adults with jobs. It also doesn’t help that driving on the D.C. beltway is a bitch and a half. Shared creation makes me feel so inspired and human. When we write together, I know I am a part of something that is pure creativity with people I trust to not to berate my ideas or poke holes in the film of confidence that I have in my writing. When I’m dropped off at home, the wholeness felt by that leaves me, and I’m momentarily empty. 

I am aware that to a lot of people, this sounds like hard work. And, I dunno, It might just be because Heartpooned itself is inherently a comedy that we have collectively decided is dumb at its core, but writing with my friends is not work. We are typically crying from laughing for almost the entire time. If we burn out, we go on a hike, explore the local bookstore, or get a cup of coffee. We talk about the book, we plan stupid little sequels. We make Pinterest boards so that we can visualize the absurdity. It could never be work, it’s only ever been love. 

This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy writing alone, I do enjoy it, and I do it all the time. But there is magic in sharing a body of work with other people, and I hope someday, everyone finds a person who they trust with their fragile creative spirit. A person to share in the excitement of a creative idea and someone to trudge through writer’s block with. I hope everyone finds their own Heartpooned moment. And, to clarify that, I mean a Writing-With-Friends moment, not a Stabbed-With-A-Harpoon one.