What I have learned

Enjoy the picture above, my memories of a grand beach in Southern CA where I lived many years before I moved to Tennessee.

"There are good ships and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are the friendships and may they always be."

I have learned this week to be a better writer. You can THINK you have produced your best work but the best is yet to be, as they say in the old days. I wrote for days, hours and hours on my new collection, then thought I was okay with some chapters, that I was pretty much done with the first draft of revision. Yeah right. Then I shuffled through my notes I had compiled over the years for just reason and saw some advice about the first paragraph of every chapter given by those that go before me. I stared at what I had written and was deflated. I had not done it justice. So I stayed up until past midnight and rewrote one paragraph, the main hook that would set the stage. Then, and only then, could I fall asleep.

Every morning, I have a new ritual. I check twitter, not for the garbage posts, but I go to the groups I have hashtaged in, writers community groups. I am so uplifted and then communicate with fellow kin. It is a wise choice for all authors, to give the boost for a new day. There will be some who are floundering and since YOU have been there, offer a way out or just make a comment or a GiF or an emoji to stir them on. It is a true community of fellow writers but you have to search them out. Everyone wants a follow back. That is admirable or maybe that is just a person collecting follows for reasons that will make them feel loved but I will not follow someone who writes in ways I do not subscribe to. Some just do the evil villainous horror that you will never read or feel lifted by. Some will do erotic that you are way way past thinking you need to make yourself feel whole by, some will only write young adult and frankly, that too, is not my bag. So be judicious about who you follow, who you want to support and chat with. There are a lot of writers out there who are searching, a lot who have arrived, a lot who just want to share. You can be friends with anyone you choose. It is not Facebook or some sorority or fraternity. It is a career model, a nest of people who think outside the box, who have a worthy outlook on life. I personally choose the ones who are poetic, write poetry, lyrical, fantasy is okay although I am not eager to read ( unless it is Outlander or a Game of Thrones style), contemporary fiction, even important non fiction, short stories ( yea!) and maybe a bit of mystery or interesting crime. WE are our own captains and the ship is sailing far and away! Be strong and valiant in your writing fellow scribers!