This is my IWSG post for July. IWSG is Alex Cavanaugh's brainchild where writers help and support other writers. To read more posts, click here.
When blogger had its hiccup recently
and blog rolls failed to populate, I had a bit of a come to Jesus moment.
For over five years, I’ve ranged
from diligent, to consistent in my posts, but what has never changed is how
much I have treasured every comment received here at Middle Passages. It
is news to no one that our craft can be a lonely one, and the virtual world
makes it less so. Each comment means someone is
reading…ME. Last week, Blogger blew up our reading pages and I had to
click one-by-one through my blog roll to read the bloggers I follow. Pretty quickly, I realized
as hard as it was for me, it would be just as difficult for my followers to find
me. If this thing didn't get fixed fast, well, gosh. Maybe they’d stop coming. The thought made me feel a little
sick. Bereft, even.
And so, the aha. I realized,
as much as I love it, I don’t just write for myself. I want, and crave
readers. During Blogger’s issue, I investigated Feedly and other options, and would probably have ended up subscribing there. But would other folks
have done that? Would it have been important to them to find me?
The idea made me harken back to those pre-Internet days. What if the only
way for folks read my stuff was to keep submitting it to a traditional,
competitive publishing world, knowing that most of it would have returned to me
with a great, big R for rejection (if even that).
That’s when I knew, I’d fail without
a writing community. To all of you out there, I want you to know how
important you are to me.
