I Am Thankful for My Friends: Allyson
Before I get to Ally, I need to cop to the fact that I haven’t been as diligent about updating this journal as I resolved I would be. I thought writing about my friends would be easy because they’re so inspirational - and they are inspirational, but the writing is tough because I want to do them justice. In fact, the entries are even harder than they were before I embarked on this little project. Also I’ve been working on a new book - a very new book. It’s taking up a lot of the space in my brain, and while I’m thinking about it all the time and even starting to like it, I don’t want to write about it here. I saw a great play tonight, Collected Stories, and there was this line about not talking about the ideas in your head, because once you talk about them, the ideas are released and the pressure to write about them is gone. I don’t know if I’d go that far. I mean, I do talk about my works-in-progress with my family and a few friends. Gayle has been particularly helpful about this one, and my conversations with her have made me more eager to write, not less. But I am afraid that blogging about it right now, when it’s still so new and vague, would jinx it a bit.
This is all a great segue into why I’m so grateful for Ally - one of the reasons I am, anyway. Several years ago my writing career was jump-started over dinner with her. At the time, I was an associate in a law firm, and the story of my life was that I really wanted to be a writer. I had always wanted to be a writer. But I had gone to law school, and taken the bar, and passed the bar (thank goodness!), and there I was several years into the practice of law. There were times when I felt proud of myself, but mostly I felt like I hadn’t accomplished the one thing I needed to accomplish, and that was to author a book. I was explaining all this to Allyson and all of a sudden it occurred to me that if I wanted to be the author of a book then I actually had to write one.
I went home and started writing the first chapter of the book that became SINCERELY, SOPHIE - which is coming out next week(!!!), alongside its companion book SINCERELY, KATIE - they’re being published as one big volume -- which you can order now! (There was a whole reorganization of my publication schedule, so that the first book I sold to Simon & Schuster is actually being published third.)
I’d like to think that my being a writer was inevitable. I really can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to do it, and I’ve always lived with these stories in my head, really elaborate stories - sometimes they involve people I know and sometimes they don’t. But if my fantasy life is that involved, then I was meant to be a writer, right? Still, I think I owe the timing to Allyson, to her inviting me to dinner, sharing a couple spicy tuna rolls and listening to me talk about writing until I got to the point that I realized a writer has to write things down.
This entry is way more about me than it is about Allyson, and of course it doesn’t do her justice at all. She is kind and beautiful and the world’s greatest cheerleader to her friends. She is loyal and generous. She bakes the most amazing truffles (homemade truffles - seriously the most heavenly thing I’ve ever consumed), and when I’m visiting her she makes extra batter just so I can eat it. Also, when you stay at her house, she makes you feel like you’re in a hotel: She leaves mints on your pillow and a pair of plush slippers by the side of the bed. She’ll accompany me to Kate Mantilini night after night, even though I know if she had her druthers we’d try other restaurants. She always has a million things going on, and she moves at about a mile a minute. Aside from her full-time job, she runs a bakery (home to the aforementioned truffles). I’ve never heard her say she didn’t have time to take something on - whether it’s a project at work, or a bakery order, or volunteer work, or a favor for a friend. She’s involved in a half-dozen non-profits - like really involved; she’ll get on the phone and fundraise, stuff envelopes, show up to an event early and sit on the floor in an evening gown and figure out the seating chart. She doesn’t do anything halfway. She remembers everything I’ve ever told her, and she is so interested in her friends - I think she has more best friends than just regular friends. The only sad thing about our friendship is that she moved away just as we were getting to close. But thankfully she is the kind of friend who isn’t affected by distance. And oh, how much I love being her friend! She’s so supercool, in a way I never could be: The first dance at her wedding was Thriller! She participates in triathlons!
As I write this, I am sitting on my bed and the bookshelf with my favorite books is just over to the right. There are my signed copies of my friends’ books, and a few books by other authors who I’ve never met but feel as if I know because I’ve loved their books so much and read them over and over again. And then there are my own books - one copy of each of them: MY SO-CALLED FAMILY, POSITIVELY, and now SINCERELY. It was a big deal to me when I placed my first book on that shelf. At first I thought it didn’t belong there, and then Arielle told me it would be OK to put it there, that it could be one of my favorites simply because it symbolized a dream coming true.
Allyson will forever be tied to why that dream came true for me, and that’s why I keep a picture of the two of us on that very same shelf.
Read About All My Friends!
Mom
Lindsay
Amanda
Brody
Arielle
Llen
Gayle
This is all a great segue into why I’m so grateful for Ally - one of the reasons I am, anyway. Several years ago my writing career was jump-started over dinner with her. At the time, I was an associate in a law firm, and the story of my life was that I really wanted to be a writer. I had always wanted to be a writer. But I had gone to law school, and taken the bar, and passed the bar (thank goodness!), and there I was several years into the practice of law. There were times when I felt proud of myself, but mostly I felt like I hadn’t accomplished the one thing I needed to accomplish, and that was to author a book. I was explaining all this to Allyson and all of a sudden it occurred to me that if I wanted to be the author of a book then I actually had to write one.
I went home and started writing the first chapter of the book that became SINCERELY, SOPHIE - which is coming out next week(!!!), alongside its companion book SINCERELY, KATIE - they’re being published as one big volume -- which you can order now! (There was a whole reorganization of my publication schedule, so that the first book I sold to Simon & Schuster is actually being published third.)
I’d like to think that my being a writer was inevitable. I really can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to do it, and I’ve always lived with these stories in my head, really elaborate stories - sometimes they involve people I know and sometimes they don’t. But if my fantasy life is that involved, then I was meant to be a writer, right? Still, I think I owe the timing to Allyson, to her inviting me to dinner, sharing a couple spicy tuna rolls and listening to me talk about writing until I got to the point that I realized a writer has to write things down.
This entry is way more about me than it is about Allyson, and of course it doesn’t do her justice at all. She is kind and beautiful and the world’s greatest cheerleader to her friends. She is loyal and generous. She bakes the most amazing truffles (homemade truffles - seriously the most heavenly thing I’ve ever consumed), and when I’m visiting her she makes extra batter just so I can eat it. Also, when you stay at her house, she makes you feel like you’re in a hotel: She leaves mints on your pillow and a pair of plush slippers by the side of the bed. She’ll accompany me to Kate Mantilini night after night, even though I know if she had her druthers we’d try other restaurants. She always has a million things going on, and she moves at about a mile a minute. Aside from her full-time job, she runs a bakery (home to the aforementioned truffles). I’ve never heard her say she didn’t have time to take something on - whether it’s a project at work, or a bakery order, or volunteer work, or a favor for a friend. She’s involved in a half-dozen non-profits - like really involved; she’ll get on the phone and fundraise, stuff envelopes, show up to an event early and sit on the floor in an evening gown and figure out the seating chart. She doesn’t do anything halfway. She remembers everything I’ve ever told her, and she is so interested in her friends - I think she has more best friends than just regular friends. The only sad thing about our friendship is that she moved away just as we were getting to close. But thankfully she is the kind of friend who isn’t affected by distance. And oh, how much I love being her friend! She’s so supercool, in a way I never could be: The first dance at her wedding was Thriller! She participates in triathlons!
As I write this, I am sitting on my bed and the bookshelf with my favorite books is just over to the right. There are my signed copies of my friends’ books, and a few books by other authors who I’ve never met but feel as if I know because I’ve loved their books so much and read them over and over again. And then there are my own books - one copy of each of them: MY SO-CALLED FAMILY, POSITIVELY, and now SINCERELY. It was a big deal to me when I placed my first book on that shelf. At first I thought it didn’t belong there, and then Arielle told me it would be OK to put it there, that it could be one of my favorites simply because it symbolized a dream coming true.
Allyson will forever be tied to why that dream came true for me, and that’s why I keep a picture of the two of us on that very same shelf.
Read About All My Friends!
Mom
Lindsay
Amanda
Brody
Arielle
Llen
Gayle