It’s Monday morning and I don’t know what to write here. I woke up and looked at my email and saw a new comment here from a poet. It took me hours to realize he visited this site because I have a poem published at Poetry Breakfast today.
That’s cool, right? It points right back to what I love about sharing my poetry: it builds connection. So often as a writer I wish for more money for my work and fame. But what I have gotten from being a writer is connection and also the pleasure (and hard work) of spending time writing.
When I dreamed of being a writer, I’m not sure what I imagined it would be like. All I knew was I loved words, reading was my safe place and I wanted to be a writer when I was a grown-up person. I didn’t know it would lead to deeper conversations with people I know and conversations with people I didn’t know before the words found an audience.
What’s so cool about our world now is that we can often connect with writers. I love exchanging comments with Abigail Thomas on Facebook. I mean, yeah, that’s 100% awesome.
The downside of social media is that if we are in a comparison mood, we wonder why we aren’t that writer who just posted about her manuscript being bought. I ran into a writer acquaintance recently and we talked about this. How writers love to live in their heads and wonder why their ship hasn’t come in in the same exact way that another person’s ship has come in.
All of our ships are different. That is all.
I still don’t know what to say today. But my weird ship metaphor is enough for right now, during this posting every day November month. I’m off to work. See you tomorrow.