I'm Not Where I Was - Is That Good

Today is Writing Assignments Day. It dates back to last fall when I only had two blogs: this one and The Great Sea. By the end of the year I would have a third blog, SOF-The People, which has now been renamed, Tales From The Great Sea. In January I would create Cat in the Buff, and at the end of March, Legion of On-Line Super Heroes. And April would see me creating Faith in Forgiveness.

Six blogs. And I've ideas for a couple more. As the saying goes, "Good Lord willing and the creeks don't rise," I might have seven or eight, or even more, in a year's time.

What amazes me about this is not that I have six blogs, or that I can come up with ideas for six more. What amazes me is that I have even one blog. Had you told me a year ago I would be blogging to the world I would have thought you out of your frikkin' mind. I didn't blog. I didn't chat. I hardly used the internet at all. It was "dangerous".

Not exactly sure what it was I was afraid of, but I was afraid of it. Got into it quite by accident. You see, last year I believed I had a great story waiting to be published. I sent a query letter to a New York agent. Who promptly ignored me. After waiting two weeks past the agent's self-appointed deadline for responding I wrote him again. This time I got a response in two days. In short, it read: Get the h*ll away from me! And don't come back!

Daunted, I still tried again. This time not in New York. My new agent find was different. She had a much happier website, showing off her Authors. The problem: she only accepted electronic submissions. Email. I wasn't keen on email any more than I was on the internet itself. But I wanted to be published, so I sent the email query.

She responded within less than a day, and although it was a form letter rejection, I didn't get the "leave me the h*ll alone" feeling. For this reason, I decided to write her back and thank her for her time and prompt attention to my query. Having done that, I told her she could then delete the email without reading the rest because I was going to vent some of my disappointment.

She may, or may not, have deleted the email. However, not before she read it in its entirety. Proving my suspicions of her were on the mark, she wrote me back. What she did was direct me to the Evil Editor blog, where she said I would get the opportunity to learn a LOT. So I did. And I did.

My visit and experience there led me to create this blog and The Great Sea. Part of what I learned was that if I was twice the writer I was, I wouldn't be half as good as I believed. That is, in fact, what I consider to be the most beautiful thing about Evil Editor's blog: one gets the truth. It isn't for everybody. I was in tears after my first shredding, and sorely tempted to give up writing entirely. But something told me that this was how the big boys and girls played, and that if I wanted to join in the "fun" I was going to have to tough it out. So I do. But I know some people cannot take criticism not couched in salve. It's too much like running outside to get the mail wearing only sweatpants and a t-shirt and discovering it's about twenty degrees colder than you thought - and the ground is frosty wet.

What I have found in my blogging are precious stones of incredible worth. The people I have met, here, on my other blogs, and on other peoples' blogs, are amazing. Most are incredibly caring people, doing their best to help everyone they can. I have not personally had to interact with anyone unpleasant, although I have seen those people show up on other blogs. Someone I care about was driven away from their blog because of such treatment.

I have been fortunate. All has gone well for me. I do not get hundreds of visitors each day, nor even dozens, for that matter. But those who do come are wonderful people, and I am glad for the visits whether I get comments or not.

What a shame I can't get paid for this. It's what satisfies my soul. Writing. Talking. Blabbing. Being silly. Being stupid. Being inane. Occasionally having something of worth to say, but not very often. (Speaking of that, if you want to read something really demented, visit Tales From The Great Sea. But I warn you, it's kind of sick.)

And you know what? After seven+ months of blogging, I still don't know what I was afraid of.