How to tame yourself to understand your writerly friend...

 Ok here are some more rules on how to tame your writer and turn yourself into a friend to one:

1. Yes, by all means you can tell your writer something in confidence! Tell them about your sex life, what color your poop was, and that crazy embarrassing thing that happened to you...just realize that they are going to use it all in their writing at some point and there is nothing you can do about it. Once it’s in the writer’s imagination, there’s no erasing it.
2. Just like a Facebook status you see, not everything a writer writes is about you. Don’t assume that it is, it’s probably not. It’s probably about something completely unrelated to you, if you’re not sure, or you are curious, just ask your writer!
3. Whether they are getting paid for it or not, writing is a writer's job. They treat it like one, and so should you.
4. A writer can’t teach you to write, so stop asking them.
5. Writers are writers because they absolutely love words. They love how a certain word can completely change the meaning of a sentence, of a conversation, or of a story. If you are talking to a writer you should think about every word you’re saying, because they are going to and if you use one that hurts their feelings they will store that information away for a very long time and study it in their writerly mind.
6. When a writer isn’t writing, when a writer cannot write for whatever reason, it causes a very physical and extremely emotional response in that writer. Writing is their therapy and their demon, all at the same time. If the writing is bottling up inside of them, then there’s a problem. They will be moody, they will be emotional, they may even be downright bitchy. Writers don’t mean it so don’t hold it against them. Writers just need to write again and then they will feel better!
7. At a party, or any large gathering, writers might choose to sit off to the side and simply watch what’s happening. It absolutely does not mean they are not having a good time, or that they want to leave. As writers they are always studying people, painting the scene in their mind so they can retell it later in their writing and save it, retell it to someone who hasn’t seen what  they have seen. As writers, they are an observer and that’s where your writer is the happiest!

 For further reading on how to become a writerly friend and tame a writer I suggest reading the scene of the little Prince and the fox by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944). He really meant to call the fox "writer" but it just didn't go with the story...