Inspired by Rebellious_Soul... Rebs
We live in an era of over-abundance right now. Too much of everything. It’s a candy store with endless glass counters filled with chocolates and caramels and sugary what-nots. We don’t even have to take a number. Just walk in and help ourselves.
The internet has laid the entire world at our feet. I can be in India or Kenya or the Philippines in a boot-up and a couple of keystrokes. When our internet goes down, it’s like a family member has died. Technology addiction will soon be the latest recognized disability.
What used to be difficult to achieve is now simple. However, abundance is a double-edged sword. Where there were at one time, only a few quality sites for writers to choose from, there are now many. Your first thought might be “that’s a good thing,” but it actually tends to water down or weaken sites like Storiesspace and others.
I started writing when I was ten years old to distract myself from what was going on at home. At that time there were no sites or even an internet. Everything was hand-written on scraps of paper and bundled into a shoebox. I wrote not for others, but for me.
Then came computers and the internet and options unheard of until then. In the late eighties, my secretary knew I wrote poetry and that I kept a notebook in my desk. Unbeknownst to me, she sent one of my poems into some society of poets she found.
A few months later, I got a letter from them stating that I was the “Golden Poet of the Year” and could I come to New York and get my award from none other than, Bob Hope. I really intended to go, but I started thinking about sitting at the same table as awards to people who wrote about wall-to-wall carpeting and how deep to plow for winter vegetables.
They sent my award to me in the mail, but what it did was open me up to greater possibilities. I transferred all of my work to “floppy disks” and had them labeled very efficiently. Then, at some point in the future, I was published in two overly pretentious volumes; Great Poems of the Western World, Volume II; and, Tracing the Infinite.
Like beauty, quality is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve never presumed to be a good writer. I do know all of the silent letters and usually when to put in a comma or a period. I am guilty of run-on sentences like this one where you start out trying to explain a circumstance to make a point in the story but get sidetracked and think you need a greater explanation and it turns into a whole new chapter and then you think, “Oh, well,” it’s time for dinner and a tuna sandwich sounds good but you don’t have any tuna, and besides it gives you cat breath, then you have to go out to the car and get the Tic-Tacs.
When I first came to SS back in 2009, there were some illustrious writers here. I felt like I was walking amongst giants and just tried not to get trampled. Some are still here, and new writers came along with fresh ideas and energy. It was a combination of old veterans and a brash youth.
Writing isn’t for everyone. Only the few. It is a self-rewarding endeavor. There are no confetti drops, no trumpets, and no parades. It is a small collective of like-minded writers who seek silent applause from their peers.
I don’t write as much as I should. I don’t read as much as I should. Hell, my wife will tell you I don’t do anything as much as I should. I’m like a fuse. I burn slow until I reach the charge and then explode. Sometimes, like now, I will have 4-5 pieces of work in various stages because that’s how my mind works best.
As a writer, I’ve learned that my greatest lessons have come from my worst pieces. Being my own harshest critic. That being said, a writer also has to have thick skin and an open mind to criticism. A jewel in your hand may only be a stone in another’s. It’s important to know that.
Most importantly, a writer has to be humble and make space for other writers. This isn’t a competition. You should loan your pencils and crayons when asked. Be a mentor or seek help. The roles are interchangeable.
So, you wanna be a writer, huh? Come on in… the water’s fine.
Hi. I’m LDJohnson. I’m a writer.
