How To Support Your Writer Friend

So you’ve got a friend who is a writer! Maybe they freelance, maybe they blog, maybe they’re working on a novel or a screenplay. Regardless — a writer is a gentle soul, delicate and artistic, and they ought to be supported as such. Do any of the below to help them out.

1. Like their stories.

Likes make stories more visible, especially here on Medium. If you enjoyed their story or found it interesting, why not throw it a like?

2. Share their stories on your social media platform.

Promotion helps, too! Help spread the word about your friend’s great content on your Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or heck, even Okcupid. Email it to everyone you know.

3. Offer to read their manuscripts.

So long as you never, ever criticize their work. It is perfect and good, just the way it is. Only offer praise.

4. Actually, never criticize anything they do, at all.

Period.

5. Cook them dinner.

And do the dishes after, won’t you? Eating and cleaning are concerns of the earth — the writer lives on a higher plane.

6. Send them an envelope full of unmarked bills.

Twenties are best, as fifties and hundreds might arouse suspicion. But, really, any amount is good, even ones. A check is a nuisance. Do not write them a check. You know what? Do you have Paypal or Venmo? That’s probably best.

7. Buy them things such as a car, or property in the neighborhood of their choosing.

Possibly both. The car can be pre-owned, but should be under 100,000 miles, obviously. Please consult with the writer before buying them property — they’ll want to see the place first, to make sure the view is fully inspirational.

8. Devote your life to their manuscript.

For what they do is bigger than you — bigger than any of us. Bigger than any of this.

9. Fashion for them a pair of working wings.

Strong enough to support a human, that they might join the ranks of the angels, above the wretched, huddled mass of humanity.

10. If you have the time, just write the book for them.

And let them take all the credit.