Anne Stephenson and I have been friends and writing partners since we shared a teeny-tiny dorm room at Carleton University in Ottawa. When not writing our own books, we have had many excellent adventures, written a couple of books for kids, produced a TV show, and giggled wildly as we created two romances under the name of Stephanie Browning. We have history. We have panache. We have memories not to be shared with our progeny. And…
We have a running joke, that sees us someday sharing digs once again only, this time, instead of beer and cigarettes (that was Anne – life in our dorm room had a certain flavor), it’ll be tea and cookies and incontinent supplies. And maybe a bottle of scotch. Our biggest concern is that we won’t remember where we stashed it!
However, in the meantime, (we figure we’re good to go for at least another twenty or thirty years) here’s what we intend to do:
1. Make money, lots of money…preferably by writing books that generate enough of an income for us to travel and retire in style.
2. Write books that people want to read.
3. But first, write the books that we want to write, not the ones we think we should.
4. Pat ourselves on the back (as we are wont to do!) for everything we have done; whether we make the money we’d like to have or not!
5. Revel in the writing process ‘cause there’s nothing finer than a well-chosen word or a well-writ phrase.
6. Celebrate in style when we do succeed.
7. Which means finding that perfect dress, one which hides life’s bumps and bruises and show us to be the grand dames we have become…of course, if we stick to the script, that would be black for Anne, red for me.
8. Take a nostalgia tour of all our old haunts and be able to eat and drink like we did in the old days without fear of not fitting into the aforementioned perfect dresses.
9. Be thrilled with our accomplishments when it is time to put down our pens even though we said, way back in ’92, that if we never did anything else, we would be happy anyway.
10. Remember each and every moment so we can relive them in conversation, laugh merrily at our own foibles and toast our successes.
Over and over again….