Up, up and away

My column breaks in some of the new newspapers this week; same lover, different sheets. I’m excited but kind of sad too. Because I’m branching out and the coverage is one town north of here and spreads all the way to the state line, I won’t be looking my readers in the eye anymore.

Yesterday at work a woman walked up to me, “I love your column,” she said. We chatted for a while and I told her how she made my day. It’s crazy being recognized, I just can’t get used to it. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Went to a birthday party last night, forty people or so, at least half mentioned the column and how much they enjoy it and how disappointed they are that it won’t be so local anymore.

It never dawned on me that building a platform and obtaining a fan base means moving up and sometimes away from the very people who got you there in the first place.

Next step...who knows... national?

I’m working on one right now that just might do that.

What’s your next step?  

Why leap, why jump when the ground is so hard?

I wonder, what makes us want to write, need to write, have to write, must write, can’t imagine not writing. Is it an extra chromosome or lack of one? For those of us who have explored other art forms, and have achieved a millisecond of success in them, why do we then, feel the need to pour ourselves onto the page? Is it because we think we have something to say and that there is actually someone out there who might want to partake of our intellectual pole vaulting? Are we self-centered in our own need to communicate that which we believe is academically worthy and mentally purposeful? Do we hide behind it, in it and from it when the honesty looks like an image in a broken mirror? What is it, this writing thing? What the fuck is it?

Why do I write? Because somebody told me I can? Why?

Why do you write?

Iddy biddy fish in an iddy biddy pool

For the past year I have been writing the weekly column Enough Said for the Shoreline Times in Connecticut. I have enjoyed this writing-gig and as the year went on and I started to build a small but loyal fan base I began billing myself as a minnow in a mud puddle.  I like the idea of being a little fish in a little pond, I’m comfortable here, it feels right.

Well, this minnow has wriggled her way up stream to a bigger body of water. It’s not a lake...yet, but it is one of those deep clear pools with overhanging ledges and dark water.  It’s scary in this pool because I haven’t had a chance to splash around yet. In three weeks I will.

My ‘Enough Said’ column will be appearing in eight newspapers reaching 100,000 households. A hundred grand may not seem like many to some but to minnow-me it’s like snorkeling in a great lake. I’ll post a link when the first column breaks.

How big is your pond and how deep is your water?