It Looks Like Writer Everlasting is Here to Stay

I'm beginning to settle in. Don't think that means I know what I'm doing.

Hi friends, I just noticed I’d started Writer Everlasting more than a year ago. In July, 2021, in fact. I haven’t put nearly as much time into it as I would have liked, and if I say life got in the way, I can see some of you nodding…

Sighing and nodding.

Life gets in the way for you, too. I get it.

When I conjured up the title, Writer Everlasting, I had visions of building a community of writers who ‘got’ each other, were in it for the long haul, and found comfort in sharing our stories. Stories about our lives, about our craft, about our failures and our dreams. And we’ve done a lot of that.

I wanted—and still want—this to be a safe room where anything goes. (Except cruelty. That’s not us.) I want us to be able to breathe here, but I want us to be working at our craft. We’re writers, first and foremost. I’ve been dwelling so much on my own personal needs I’ve neglected yours, and I’m sorry.

I’ve been a widow for eight months now, and all I’ll say about that is I’m adjusting. If I didn’t have my writing, I can’t imagine where I’d be right now. It’s my comfort, my crutch, my road to my future—wherever it takes me.

That puts a lot of stress on one single function, but when I look back on my long life, I see that writing has always been my comfort and my solace. And a royal pain in the ass whenever it balks and doesn’t do what I want it to do.

But what it does best is it fills my life and gives me purpose.

It gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It forces me to get over myself and enter realms that are both engaging and terrifying. I can’t imagine doing anything else. Writing is an adventure, and, as with any adventure, there are pitfalls along with the triumphs along with the pitfalls.

That may be what appeals—that feeling that I never know where this next road will lead.

But I manage to get myself worked up over things that shouldn’t have anything to do with actual writing—the lack of readers, the lack of acceptances, the lack of money coming in—and I’ve been known to waste complete days worrying over it, trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong, and what I could do better, when all I really should be doing is writing pieces that someone might want to read.

So let me tell you about the latest adventure that went nowhere: I recorded a podcast a while back—no fancy equipment, just my laptop microphone, but I did it just to see what I’d sound like, and to see if I should go that route, since everyone else seems to be doing it. (Again, roaming sheeplike across the landscape, running around in circles instead of staying put at my writing station.)

And now I’ve lost it. I’ve lost the podcast. I don’t remember where I recorded it. (I thought it was here at Substack but apparently not.) And of course, because I’ve lost it, I’ve built it up into the most wonderful podcast ever, and only a fool would not remember where she had put such a gem. A regular jewel. Lost now. Forever.

What kind of pro would lose a podcast?

So I’m in no mood right now to pretend I have something brilliant to say about writing; something you hadn’t thought of yourself and for which you would be thanking me profusely. I just can’t think of anything.

But I did want to check in and say ‘hello’, in case you missed me and were wondering where I was. I’m here, I’m thinking, and I’ll probably be sorry I ever hit ‘Publish’ on this piece. But I trust you all to ignore my bleatings, and by the time I send you another newsletter you’ll have forgotten all about it and we’ll be good.

Until then, take care, keep writing, and don’t do as I do, do as I say.

(Just forget I said that, too. It’s that kind of day.)

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