Back Again

Here I am, once again waving at everyone in blogdom, ready to spill my thoughts and words out all over the place.

Not writing doesn't work. I write. If I'm not blogging I'm thinking of what I would write (honestly ~ I will think the words as if I were writing a blog post or article). I write long entries in my paper journal, I write love letters, I post on message boards. I think as if their is an audience waiting to read my words.

So I will just own up to it, and recognize it for what it is. I write. Musicians hear tunes in their heads, painters dream of painting, writers think in sentences, paragraphs, stanzas, and more. It is perfectly fine to pursue any art and not worry about getting paid for what you do. Even if my audience is just my spouse and a few good friends, I can still write.

Once it occurred to me earlier this summer that I could actually get paid for writing, or at the minimum get published, I balked. Taking the blogs down recently came because I was afraid. Long, long ago, I was on a local BBS (we're talking late 80s and early 90s) and I posted a poem I had written, one that had been well-received by both my literature advisor and my poetry teacher. A kind soul quickly told me that anything I posted online was ripe for theft. I have carried that with me.

As long as I was just writing to write, to enjoy the process and to share my thoughts and my life, I had no fear. When I started thinking in terms of articles and books I started to imagine my words, ripped from me, published as if they had come from someone else. I didn't like that idea at all.

The reality is, I don't know if I will ever get paid or published. I've never investigated the idea or sent out queries. I don't know if I need that motivation, or that recognition. I don't know what I want, and that is okay too.