A Tale of Two Laurels

by Tamara Passey

Remember that little saying (I learned it in Girl Scouts)? "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold." Yep, that's right. Gold. Anyone who has lived a while on this earth (ahem) can tell you what a treasure it is to have an old friend. They are hard to come by. But, oh the comfort of spending time with someone "who knew you when. . . " Less explaining, more reminiscing.

You know what else is hard to come by? Writer friends. Which makes the upcoming point of my story all the more amazing. But you know what I'm talking about. Writers work mostly in the confines of their home and even if they are social and have lots of friends, what are the odds any of them will be writers, too? It is better for writers in this day and age of internet, critique groups and wonderful writing conferences, but any writer out there will tell you how nice it is to have a friend that also writes. Who else can understand you when you're crying over killing off one of your own characters?

So imagine my surprise at the LDS Storymaker's Conference last weekend, I had just walked into the ballroom when my friend Sally recognized me. A friend I hadn't seen in say, 20 years. And who happens to be writing books! How cool is that? We were Laurels together in the same ward in Massachusetts. And now? We are both living in the Southwest (read desert). Some of our children are the same age. We are both writing books and I suppose to top it off - we both married men with the same first name! (Sally, is there a book in this somewhere?)

This was the first of many highlights to this year's conference. And I will be blogging about the rest soon. Meanwhile, for more on the story, check out my friend's blog here. And have a great writing day!