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January 14, 2012

community: writing

I get so engrossed in my own work that I neglect community — what I have in common with others, and who those others are.

I can’t say that I’m lonely, but when I look around, I am alone a lot of the time. Which is usually my choice, so I can actually get work done.

Perhaps the instance that I lost my partner just two years ago this month (was it this day?) is the reason that I’m having these thoughts today. I miss her very much. She accepted me as I was with no questions asked, her mind was lively and curious about the world around us, with a few settled opinions but basically an open mind. She professed that I had opened up new areas for her; in particular, writing prose. Writing about her life. Writing about her marriage which had ended in divorce, an issue that she had never quite resolved. And even then, after voluminous writings, she seemed to have writer’s block on coming to the end of that story.

And now I see that my act of writing this down has directed me toward my purpose: writing. Or, in my case, editing.

The people I’d like to associate with, perhaps learn from, are aspiring writers. Through much of my life, I (usually we) have consorted with people doing approximately the same activity as I/we were involved in, at approximately the same age or stage of process.

Now, I find I’m more comfortable around people younger than me. Sidenote: that may be a life pattern; when I first had childhood friends, they were younger than I was. I wasn’t the leader, we were equals in my mind.

Right now I seem to be in the process of deciding whether or not to offer a workshop for writers or people considering self-publishing. I know enough about the subject to contribute to the conversation, yet open/curious enough about new ways of approaching the process to listen. Do I need this? Do they? I will let this thought simmer in my mind until it settles out one way or the other. Or, as often happens with my ideas, perhaps it will morph into something unexpected.

Even with this blog, I’m inexperienced enough not to know how to respond or accept responses. Afraid of responses. Will that throw me off my own thinking? Will it enliven me into new ways of thinking? Is this the community that I started this blog with?

My slogan for writing has been: Who is writing what for whom? as a clarifying statement. So, who am I writing this for? Myself, in part. The other part I don’t yet know.

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