I just wanted to take a moment here to publicly acknowledge a whole community that I consider myself fortunate for discovering.
Under different names and websites, I have been active on the net for twelve years or more. In that time, I felt largely ignored and monumentally alone. Seeing as how website creation, blogging and writing poetry & fiction have been my hobbies over the years, it can make for a solitary existence. It’s so easy to give up on a project or not bother to blog for months on end when you feel that all you’re doing, all you’ll ever be doing, is talking to yourself.
A month ago, I decided to join Twitter as Justus R Stone (my chosen pen name). I started doing some research and through useful hash tags such as #amwriting started connecting with other writers. Some of these people are already published, many more are hard at work getting there. Universally, they all pass along outstanding advice and support.
This blog is new. This will be the 14th post. And yet I have had more people make comments on my articles here than I did on any other blog or website I have owned in the past 12 years. It is so much easier to sit down and write my work in progress, or do a blog entry, when it feels like there are people pulling for me.
Now, I do have a loving wife and kids who are always in my corner, but none of them are writers. It is an entirely different experience to receive support and encouragement from those that share your passion and understand the trials that passion brings.
So I just wanted to say thank you to all those who have come to visit, to those who are following the feed and to those who join me on Twitter. You have all made this new step into realising my dream much easier and made obtaining that end goal seem all the more attainable.