If a blog post gets published on the internet and nobody is there to read it, did it really happen? You're reading this right? I mean, I know you're reading this because I've got those nifty little wordpress stats that tell me you are reading this. In fact, in the past two weeks, an extra 50% of you have been reading what I have to say (unless that just comes from the Adorkable Thespian getting an itchy mouse finger with no sexual outlet in sight...)
I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful for the discussion my recent posts have been creating. You guys don't comment on my posts very often and so it's not hard to believe that what I say just goes out into some sort of void. Especially when I see my friend's blogs... Yup, I've got comment envy.
Anyway, most of you seem to have been really keen on my recent posts, especially the one on The Value of Me. Rebecca Coleman (her again?) sent me a really great post she wrote a few years ago on putting value on your work (originally for The Next Stage Magazine - another great blog you should be reading!), which I had completely forgotten about.
However, what really amazed me with that post was that another blogger actually picked it up and used it as inspiration for their own writing. Whoa. That's a first.
Michael Di Lauro uses words like "thought-provoking" and "evocatively," and said I speak "plainly and concisely."
Me?
That sounds so very very different from the stuff I heard about my writing at a certain Fringe Festival that shall remain nameless (though still linked for good measure).
I thought I was over that. I thought I was optimistically over that. But I haven't been. I've been very bad at working on a new script and I realize now that this was the main reason why. I've been letting the meanies, the bullies, the critics, and all the people who "mean well" win. And I convinced myself that that's all that was out there.
It didn't hit me until I read Michael's post how much I love writing and how I continued to do it from the safety mind zone of thinking no one was reading. Now that I know people are and I know that it actually inspires, entertains, heck maybe helps them in some way, well, I want to do it even more. Critics be damned!
So thank you, dear readers, I'm glad you are sticking around. Just don't be afraid to say "Hi!" every now and then, m'kay?