I run a workshop for writers conference rookies where the bottom line is: Be Friendly. The term friend has somehow grown shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding. It’s devolved into internet chums or collected names on social media. A friend is no longer the one to call when you’re in jail or when you’re at wits end and about to do something that might land you there. So I think it’s time I put my 49+ years of worldly wisdom to work and explain just what I mean when I say, “Be Friendly.” To me, friend… Read Article →
Posts Tagged: friendship
Friendships can be many things: sounding boards, touchstones, shoulders to cry on, partners in crime. All friendships share one thing in common: a mutual sense of necessary relationship. Friends understand (consciously or not) the length and breadth of their mutual devotion. If they don’t, then it’s not truly a friendship. It’s an association with potential. There are those, like my wife, who make friends easily. People like her make quick connections and maintain them over years and miles. She regularly talks/FaceTimes/emails/texts with folks from childhood, college, and her long military service. My wife has the… Read Article →
Warning: I use a curse word in this one. Oh my! An email blast news headline caught my eye last week. That rarely happens as I tend to look at those as things to be ignored. However, this was not the usual “who’s dying where and how” type of headline. It spoke of adult men not having close friends, and that intrigued me. I am not of the man-school that decrees real men swallow their emotions and exude a constant facade of hard, rigid strength. Or that it’s weak to show empathy, care, and heartfelt… Read Article →