Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The world is so small, so vast...

It strikes me, again and again, that I live in marvelous times. Not Polly Anna times, mind you. Humans are humans; with all their frailties, faults, fears, strengths, courage and faith. Rather, marvelous in our abilities and opportunities.

Since this is a writing blog, I want to relate what I mean in the context of the global community of writers. A community I try to participate in  as often as I can.

I was recently on Goodreads, a web site dedicated to helping 'people find and share the books they love'. I have an account there where I chat with people all over the world about books. I have an Author's account on the SciFi Writers group where I talk about my books and discuss other authors books. It's been a great help to me and I have author friends everywhere, everywhere. The UK, Canada, Australia, France, Scotland, Japan and others.

But the marvelous part of this is the global community part. It's said so often that we've become numb to the words. 'Global community'. Contact, anytime I want, with any reader or writer who wants to talk. We can joke about a pun, discuss voicing in a novel, what the difference between a novel and a novelette or the curse of the apostrophe. Anything!

This ability has opened the world of literature in the same way that the train and the airplane opened the world of travel. Those novelist that are masters of their craft still command the limelight and accolades. But now the amateur writer can have an audience as well.

We don't need a big name publisher to take a chance on us, which means they won't. We can write and publish and all it costs is our time. For those who really enjoy writing, it means we can continue to write and get better even though our rank on Amazon is too low to get attention. If you can't publish, you can't get a readership.

I've already had several writers contact me on Goodreads to say they want to chat and exchange ideas.

Exchange ideas without qualification. They didn't ask if we were competitors but rather how could we cooperate.

My small neck of the woods just got a little bigger. It's amazing.

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