Writers and Friends

I'm late getting around today. Well, not just today, but often lately. I'm looking out the window right now at redheaded woodpecker snacking at the suet feeder in the side yard. It's  kind of a gloomy day, and the friendly woodpecker and the brilliant green of freshly mown grass lighten things up considerably. 

It makes me think of the writing business. I've been writing for money (negligible, but still money) since I was in my 30s, for my soul since I was nine, and from my heart since the first time I two-fingered out a story on my aunt's typewriter. 

There is much I don't like about it anymore. I don't like that AI is sticking its ugly head so far into our business. I don't like that lack of respect for romantic fiction now has so many different sub-genres to disrespect and that in the age of anything goes social media, the sub-areas even show disrespect to each other. 

But I still like the books, don't you? Whether they're indie, trad, or hybrid. Even if you hate the kinds of covers that are trending right now, you like what's on the inside and you know that sometime soon, you'll like covers again. If you don't like present tense, you can avoid it--or give it a chance; same with first person. Sweet, spicy, erotic, paranormal, clean--there are plenty of all of them to go around. And there are no book police saying you should finish a book you don't like, write a hateful review because you can, or answer one of those FB conversation starters that go something like this: What are the worst books you've read this year?

As I usually do, I've gone way off course here. If this were a racetrack, I'd be sitting sideways in the infield wondering how I got there. 

Jan Scarbrough

Because what I wanted to talk about was other writers and the collectives they share. There are groups in every sub-genre, every publishing house, every group writing blog. There are communities of us who feel the same loyalty to our retired favorites as we did when we were preordering their books the first day they showed up on Amazon. If they released new books now, we'd still buy them the first day, read them the first afternoon, leave reviews before sleeping. 

With the recent losses of members of some of those groups, of the ones I knew and miss personally, Caroline Clemmons and Jan Scarbrough, more than communities have shrunk. Much more.

Because more than groups, collectives, or communities, writers are a circle of friends. At the end of our writing day, no matter how much gloom we encounter, what is known as a solitary endeavor isn't really at all. We all speak the same language, we virtually all have each other's backs. 

In the intersecting circles of our communities, we can always find the brightness. The woodpecker. The jewel-toned grass. Each other. 

I am grateful.