Thursday, July 2, 2009

Still writing...

Yes, I'm still writing. This is the reply I often have to make to the stock inquiry well meaning acquaintances fling at me--'Are you still writing?'--sometimes kindly, others patronizingly. In my most understanding moments I accept it as one of those ritual queries--how are you/is all well/are the children fine--people serve up in the course of polite interchange...An acknowledgment of my existence as another human being, someone who has tried to adopt a profession which is (most likely) baffling to those who do not 'write'.Most of the time this question arouses uncharitable responses which for various reasons I suppress to share later with other writers who have similar experiences. Yes, being the kind of masochist who has chosen to sequester myself in a dark niche I deserve what I get, perhaps. The kind of niche populated by similar gnomes who enjoy toiling in the dark but can share the glow cast by a nugget someone else has unearthed even if it is to compare its size with the one they have come up with. Occasionally one of us finds an extra large one and hopefully emerges into the light and one one ever asks her again--'Are you still writing?'
As for me, 40 books later I'm still waiting for my non-writer friends to learn that I write every single day of my life--even when I'm not feeding words into my computer!

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