This is my symphony

I’ve amused myself with this little blog for eight years now. For most of that time, blogging was a delightful diversion, a pastime for those long summer days.

And then suddenly, it wasn’t.

Thinking I’d been bitten by the blogging bug, I saw blogging conferences in my future and read everything I could about the business of blogging. I poked around the sidebars of blogs I read for book bloggers who were of my own heart. (Networking, I learned, was key.) I hemmed and hawed about participating in blog hops and challenges. Then I bought a StudioPress template and my domain name and migrated from Blogger  to a self-hosted site. I even hired a web designer to help with the back-end technicalities about which I knew nothing.

And then I realized that what I really wanted to do was simply write. Now if I’m a picky reader (which I am), you had better believe I’m an even pickier writer. Writers are Anne Tyler and Paulette Jiles. Fredrik Backman and Alan Bradley. Barbara Kingsolver, for goodness sake! But word by word, paragraph by paragraph my thinking shifted. I found I wasn’t as interested in developing my brand as I was in playing with words. I didn’t want to market myself as much as I wanted to get the characters who have played in my head for so many years on the page. I took one Writing Workshop, then another. I attended Sunday morning Writing Circles. And every now and again I’d think oh-so-tentatively, “I’m a writer.”

Because a writer, after all, is someone who writes.

So write I will. No more and no less. There will be no e-books or POD books in my future any time soon. I won’t be distracted with my Klout score or scramble to get my post on Medium. For now I won’t worry about missing out on yet another NaNoWriMo–I’ve got bills to pay, papers to grade, lessons to plan. Because does the world really need another novel, or do I just need to write?

Those characters who’ve lived in my head? They’re making their way onto the page, peeking out every now and then from a workshop piece. It’s slow going, but there’s no rush. I only need to write.

With special thanks and gratitude to Emily and Pat and Brenda who helped me draft my way.

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Thanks for reading! To return to the FICTION WRITERS BLOG HOP on Julie Valerie’s website, click here: http://www.julievalerie.com/fiction-writers-blog-hop-oct-2016