A
bit more than six years ago, I was reading an article about some famous blogs
that had turned into book deals and thought Hmmm...
One
of them was Girl with a One-Track Mind, the other one Wife in the North. There were others too. I didn’t think I could find something constantly interesting
to write about, in my life or in the place where I live, nor have the stamina
to do it daily, but the idea of writing a bit of my soul and let it float away
on a tiny paper (or rather, electronic) boat on the river of the World Wide
Web, felt kind of exciting. Scary, but exciting.
So,
exactly six years ago today, I took the plunge. (Or maybe the first shaky
step.)
A
link from Wife in the North had taken me to the Inner Minx, the blog of Minx,
aka Kate Bousfield, author of “Coven of One.” Minx was just blogging
about some lions (not just any lions, but lions of Lyon)
up for adoption at Seamus Kearney’s site. Go take a look, they’re still there
and they are beautiful!
(Seamus
is an Irishman from New Zealand
living and working as a journalist in France. Also a short-story writer,
novelist, musician, blogger…)
One
could “adopt” a lion, name him, write a short poem or text about him, and
become a member of the group of writers called The Shameless Lions WritingCircle, initiated by Seamus. Got it? Seamus – Shameless :-)
At
the time, Seamus believed –I’m sure that he still does- that powerful writing
can be found in many places on the internet. The Circle and the award “A Roar
for Powerful Words” were developed by him to put forth that belief and to
encourage writers to roar. I completely agree with this.
I
chose my lion, which you can see on the right side bar of my blog (yes, go
lower, much lower), wrote my poem, actually I wrote two because the first one
was too long (also on the side bar, below Alexander’s photo) and Seamus very gracefully
accepted me into the Shameless Lions
Circle.
This
is how I met a bunch of great people. Some have since retired from blogging,
some have become successfully published authors, a few are still going on.
I
guess I’m one of those still going on…
The
Shameless Lions Writing Circle was the first leap for me. The second was The Clarity of Night. In fact, it was Minx again who suggested to me I should check
it out. I’m
so glad I did.
Jason Evans’s blog, the beauty of his writings, and the high
quality contests that he held on his blog have all meant tremendously to me. The
blogosphere is certainly poorer without them. I surely miss them. But although
Jason’s isn’t an active blog anymore, the goodies are still all there, just a few clicks away.
It
is, in a way, mind-boggling to see how paths open one from another, taking you
to wonderful places where you can meet wonderful, incredibly talented,
like-minded people, and how unbelievably enriching this experience, this
communion can be. Not to mention the exceptional quality of the poetry, prose,
photography, etc. –art in one word- that these people are posting on their
blogs.
This
is why I’m still here…
