My Love Letter to You
I’m perusing the internet this morning, email, blog posts, Twitter (haven’t even gotten to Facebook yet) and I’m awash with all this love for my fellow kidlitters. Perhaps it’s because I slept an extra two hours this morning, but I’m inspired to share it with you.
Think about writers of yesteryear. They sat in converted attic rooms and pecked away on stiff old keyboards. Their fingers got all inky when they replaced the ribbon. They used that strange eraser paper (before white out). They allowed spiders to spin webs in the eaves, so that when they mumbled or ranted, they weren’t talking to themselves.
Writers of today have it so much better. They can take their laptop or ipad to the beach and only worry about dive-bombing seagulls while they work. Their cursor moves backward as much as, if not more often than, forward. But the most effective tool a writer of today has is social media. They can hop online and ask, “Would a 13 year old still take a stuffed animal on a sleep over?” They can schedule a day’s worth of promotion before they hunker down to write. And they can rant. And bemoan. And lament. And there is someone there who not only listens, but commiserates. They can trumpet good news far and wide and people cheer and help spread the word.
Personally, I’m convinced I would have given up writing ages ago if I’d been forced to do it in a box. If the only outside communication I ever got was one “I like your work” in every twenty “no thanks” responses, I’d have lost the will. It is really huge to me that I share this journey, its ups and its downs, with so many other people. I may still have a 1 to 20 ratio, but I see how many other writers do also and it’s comforting (okay, I don’t really know my ratio, I just pulled that out of the air). Then I see one of those writers break out and find success and I’m encouraged that it could happen to me also.
I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I’ve seen many of you draw strength from your virtual friends and be buoyed by their successes. I just felt it was time to say thanks. Thank you to every single one of you people who are brave enough to share your woes and joyful enough to share your victories and compassionate enough to understand when we do it too. Thank you for all your humorous quips, for poking fun at your writing habits, for giving shout outs to those who support you.
Thank you for being a community. I’m proud to be a part of it.
Think about writers of yesteryear. They sat in converted attic rooms and pecked away on stiff old keyboards. Their fingers got all inky when they replaced the ribbon. They used that strange eraser paper (before white out). They allowed spiders to spin webs in the eaves, so that when they mumbled or ranted, they weren’t talking to themselves.
Writers of today have it so much better. They can take their laptop or ipad to the beach and only worry about dive-bombing seagulls while they work. Their cursor moves backward as much as, if not more often than, forward. But the most effective tool a writer of today has is social media. They can hop online and ask, “Would a 13 year old still take a stuffed animal on a sleep over?” They can schedule a day’s worth of promotion before they hunker down to write. And they can rant. And bemoan. And lament. And there is someone there who not only listens, but commiserates. They can trumpet good news far and wide and people cheer and help spread the word.
Personally, I’m convinced I would have given up writing ages ago if I’d been forced to do it in a box. If the only outside communication I ever got was one “I like your work” in every twenty “no thanks” responses, I’d have lost the will. It is really huge to me that I share this journey, its ups and its downs, with so many other people. I may still have a 1 to 20 ratio, but I see how many other writers do also and it’s comforting (okay, I don’t really know my ratio, I just pulled that out of the air). Then I see one of those writers break out and find success and I’m encouraged that it could happen to me also.
I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I’ve seen many of you draw strength from your virtual friends and be buoyed by their successes. I just felt it was time to say thanks. Thank you to every single one of you people who are brave enough to share your woes and joyful enough to share your victories and compassionate enough to understand when we do it too. Thank you for all your humorous quips, for poking fun at your writing habits, for giving shout outs to those who support you.
Thank you for being a community. I’m proud to be a part of it.