You’ve got the beat / Mama’s little baby likes it short and sweet / I said my, my, my / I’m once bitten twice shy, baby…

(sorry – had to continued the lyric and give you all the ear worm.  I’m good and giving like that)

***

 “All women hustle. Women watch faces, voices, gestures, moods.
      “She’s the person who has to survive through cunning.”
            — Marge Piercy, Small Changes, 1973

I forget how much Marge Piercy inspired me back when I’d started writing.  Her poetry is fantastic.  Liberating.  I fell in love with the feel of her words – the rhythm of her sentences.  And really, that’s what writing’s all about.  It’s the rhythm I hear inside my head.  Which means I can’t change my sentence structure or my voice all that much, because it’s the way I hear the story.  It’s what makes some readers love my stuff and some readers not. One person will say it’s well written, another says she can’t understand a thing I wrote.  And I think that speaks to the rhythms, the way you read, the way you hear the story in your head.  It’s nothing to do with grammar or editing or point of view – it’s, do you like the way this author’s words flow or not.  And if you don’t, could be the greatest story in the world and you’re not going to see it because we don’t mesh.

Writing’s a very personal thing – it’s amazing when your words go out into the world and you get emails back with people telling you how much they loved your stuff. But the only thing a writer needs to be focused on is, do you love your stuff and do you enjoy what you’re writing.  If you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to?

Speaking of, I’ve got at least 6K to write today!