Why in the world wide web are you here?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably well-aware of the enormous writing community that exists online in various shapes and sizes. You’re probably more than aware, you’re part of it.
There are blogs and websites, message boards, magazines, journals, listings, ezines and courses. There are published writers, writing teachers, publishers, agents, editors, soon-to-be and never-to-be published writers. There are novelists and freelancers, men and women, old and young. Most people in the online writing world are helpful and friendly. They put on a cyber smile and share their thoughts, their craft, their ideas. They make me feel like an insider. Some offer help or prizes (yay for prizes!) Some writers let you read their work. Some are just marketing, others are teaching, all are learning.
I had a personal blog for almost three years and for a long time was entrenched in the world of (gulp) mommy bloggers, although with children out of diapers I never thought of myself as such. I knew why these women blogged. They wanted to connect with other moms.
So after a while I wanted to just write about writing so I could connect even more with even more writers.
And it’s working!
But what I’ve found as I continue to discover writer sites and writer blogs is that some writers are really down on writing and writers. Now I don’t mean that in a hip-hop, urban kind of being “down” with something way, I mean that I read so many negative things by writers about writing and other writers. I’m no Polly Anna and I’m surely not all sunshine and roses, but if the mainstay of a site or blog was negative, I took it off my Bloglines. Yes, I hit the ever-powerful delete key, the virtual trash can, cyber recycle bin.
Because…I read online to laugh or think or be inspired.
Now you might say – hey, wait a minute – this is a very negative post about negative posters. True, but it was inspired by all the upbeat, helpful and wise writers that I read whenever they share something new.
I realized they are why I’m here.
What has inspired you to become part of this wonderful world wide web of writers? What makes you stay? And, do you ever think of just signing off for good?
What inspires me? The exact same things you mention — the connection, the learning, the sharing. Like the Hokey Pokey song says, “That’s what it’s all about!”
I’m too new at the blogging game to have considered signing off yet, and don’t see that happening for a long time, if ever.
Thanks for being a positive force! Write on.
I’m inspired by others. Your blog Amy is among six I go to now on a regular basis because of the positive spin on a what can be a very solitary toil: writing. At the beginning of your post you list several aspects of this business/profession/art form and that is initially what overwhelmed me. Could I be heard amid the din of so many scribes?
I’m still not sure if I will ever make a go of it, but thanks again Amy for being so positive and intelligent. I’ve finally started my own blog and not in a very auspicious way either. Very much a look at my empty gut, as it were!
I write alone–um, as alone as I could be with four kids. I am very cut off, in some ways, from others . . . and the writing blogs let me have friends in cyberspace that I couldn’t have otherwise.
Yes, I do think about signing off for good. I LOVE the people and the community, so I couldn’t ever. But I waste too much time. Well, it’s not a waste. But it’s time.
Ah well, back to work!
PS: Sometimes I’m okay with the negativity, sometimes not. Sometimes if I know the whole person, it doesn’t bother me. With some, it makes me feel better, because they may be published in more “respectable” venues, but I make more money. So it makes me feel better, I guess.
That’s bad, isn’t it? *sigh*
I don’t consider the negative stuff so much “negative” usually as realistic. To me, all the writers around me seem like people getting in on an MLM scheme. Everybody thinks they’ll be the one driving the mary kay pink car…somehow. Despite the odds.
I consider my blog pretty positive though because if people start to realize “hey, there’s no real money in this for most people” (speaking especially about fiction) then it can become about something besides a “writing career.” It can be about making and sharing art. Then it becomes more of a joyful process than a stress filled one.
I think this is overall far more positive than the Pollyanna, “You’re going to make it just keep believing” fluff. Because that’s not true. Everybody WON’T make it, no matter how much they believe they will. And I think it’s harmful to people to just give them that side without a dose of realism.
Increased exposure to new writing and the people who put it out there. New ideas. Friends. I’m met some awesome people (older than me and younger than me) in the past three years.
I started blogging not only to join the writing community here, but to expand on a concept of my fiction manuscript, knowing who we really are, and staying true. So I incorporate the writing craft with the art of exploring our choice lives. I learn good stuff every day from my blogpals!