The Written Word

 I'm a literal kind of person, as in, I like literature. I wish life were more like literature with it's long and precise descriptions and thoughts being carefully contemplated. I've had some emails pass my way that are not familiar. They are strangers in their content and origin. They are about my writing...I think.

I've been writing on the internet for almost ten years (::gasp:: It can't be that long already!), but under a pen name. It's nice to have other people read your work and not have to deal with the fact that they are teachers, friends, or family. While these people are all great and I want them to read my writing, they do have their draw backs. Teachers give grades. Friends are nice to you (I don't care what disillusions some of you may have, a friend will always criticize you in a NICE way. And 'nice' is just...not). Your family is going to tell you your work is great no matter what, if they didn't, you wouldn't have shown it to them anyway. So the blessing of the internet was that it was a place for me to write and get constructive criticism about my craft. My teachers sharpened my skills, and my readers sharpened my creativity. Until recently, all of my emails were reviews of chapters of stories that I had been posting. They were either nice little nuggets of praise or some stinging ones of...not praise, let's put it like that. A few years ago I started helping other writers as a proof reader and would get requests to read and proof stories. It was a noble thought, but I would just get lost in the stories and obsess over them like they were my own. And then I felt bad for sending the stories back COVERED in red type! So, yeah...I'm not so much for proof reading anymore {but I'm not totally out of the game ;)}. And recently I have been getting emails with comments about my blog posts. I like these. I like them a lot!

In the past couple of days I have received two interesting emails of note. At first, they seemed like junk-mail. The name of the sender was unfamiliar and slightly corny, the title vague and commercialish. But they had just a hint of...oh, I don't know, something. There was something in their words that told me I should open them and see what they were about. One of them was an invitation to post my writing on a site for independent writers where I can opt to sell portions of my writing as serializations. Now, I'm not into writing for the money, but if it's offered, why look a gift horse in the mouth? The money thing aside, I was kind of thrilled that someone suggested I branch out of my safe little writing haven. I've been posting on the same site for ten years; if someone was going to take advantage of my dreams as a writer, why wait so long? The site doesn't have that many members. I still haven't looked into the site yet; I'm still skeptical. They liked my unfinished zombie story. The second email I got was an invitation to join a Harry Potter RPG. This was intriguing. Firstly, because I did not know the sender, nor any of the other recipients of the invitation. Secondly, because I am a Harry Potter fan and have been doodling a few Harry Potter fanfics over the years. Thirdly, I love RPGs and there are only a few people who know that about me. Well, I guess YOU know that about me too! I was in a couple of RPGs when I was in high school. They were old school, face to face meetings, where we used pencils, paper, and dice to determine the points we lost and gained. We also tape recorded the sessions and I might die laughing if I got to hear them again. So the idea of joining an online RPG has certainly got me interested.

I feel like I'm at the threshold of something, like I've found a door to a room and nobody's watching. But maybe it's just the coat room and nobody's watching because nobody cares. I'll have to ponder these emails and what they mean to me on a less personal level (because I take my email very personally). Until I figure them out, I'll keep blogging and telling you what I'm wearing, what I'm thinking, and what I'm writing. I think I just found what my blog is about.