Ya gotta have friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Iwmcs1hps

Can you hear Bette Midler?

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the Liberty States Fiction Writers' conference.
I can't wait to get there.

Writing is mostly a solitary occupation. You sit at a desk and write longhand...some of the greatest stories in the world were written that way. Some are written at a computer, which is something I never thought I would do and now do with ease. Some, alas, were and still are written in a chilly garret, away from the rest of the world, by someone starving for attention...or just someone to read their precious words.
The garret floor is littered with their ideas.

Sometimes, that's the only place for them.

But to be surrounded by fellows who understand your need to express yourself. Who know why you go silent or why you get so agitated that you break into conversations because you just had this GREAT IDEA and if you don't let it loose, you will forget it. They know and they grudgingly accept it because they, too, have felt the need.

One can write alone. But if the purpose of writing is for others to read your words and understand...you have to get your words out of the computer, out of the pen or pencil...so your words can be appreciated by others.  That's what you crave. You want someone other than your mother to say, Wow, that's good stuff!

Or--if it is drivel, somebody ought to let you know about that, too.

But to be safe...sometimes it is best to leave it on the garret floor.