The Blog that Binds Us

By Pamela

A few months ago the six of us gathered to discuss this blog to determine whether, in a sea filled with other bloggers, we should keep paddling along or abandon ship.

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of this blog and in those years we've collectively written over 760 posts. We originally set up a schedule that divvied up the duties between the six of us, so we'd post M|W|F each week with each of us posting once, every other week. Back then, I don't think any of us looked too far into the future; certainly I never thought that we'd rarely deviate from our original schedule over the next five years. But here we are, hundreds of posts later, still blogging about the writing life--the ups and downs of writing first drafts, editing second drafts, rewriting entire manuscripts, querying, researching stories, researching agents, entering contests, attending conferences, joining Facebook, Tweeting--and sharing it all as a team of six.

Our first retreat

We've now gone away on five annual retreats--with all six of us in attendance! Sometimes, in the planning process, it seems a little dicey that we'll all be able to make it (and this year, we weren't sure we'd get home after being iced in an extra day), but we always manage to make the retreat a priority and my hope is this year is no exception.

So, obviously, that lunch several months ago ended with all six of us still committed to keeping What Women Write out in the blogosphere. We'll continue to review books and interview authors and agents and editors. We're committed to encouraging each other and other women who write--whether she's pursuing publication, keeping a journal, working as a freelancer or just starting to find her voice.

My wish for every writer--male and female alike--is that you have a community of support as we do. That you surround yourself with sources of encouragement. That you pick yourself up whenever you feel like giving up. That when you think, 'there's got to be an easier way' you remind yourself that 'easier' isn't 'better' and if writing were easy, everyone would be great at it. That you take the time to reread your words and marvel how no one can turn a phrase the way you do. That you forgive yourself transgressions including misplaced modifiers and POV confusion. That you commend yourself for caring about the difference between pallet/palette and complement/compliment and stationery/stationary and understanding when others do not. That you love yourself enough to keep writing when doing just about anything else makes more sense.

We're so glad you've joined us on this five-year excursion--at whatever stage you stepped into the boat. Here's to the next five years! Bon voyage!