Thirty Days of Thanks: Right

I created this blog in August 2006, and for the past four and a half years, have alternately paid great attention or no attention to it.

I've written a biweekly or weekly column in a smalltown newspaper for more than eight years...my next one will be my 400th. I'm also in my sixth season of writing a rather cheesy NFL prediction column, mostly for laughs, and began co-writing a monthly food column in September 2009.

I've attended several writing workshops, and dashed to author events to hear them talk about their process of creating a novel or collection of poems.

I've dabbled in a few lines of poetry myself, and made a half-hearted attempt at completing a novel in a month for the NaNoWriMo challenge (one day I'll finish one). I also occasionally participate in a co-journaling exercise with my favorite writer.

Cap off that list with bookshelves filled with dozens of manuals on the writing craft, and creativity, and grammar and the English language, and writing exercises...and it's easy enough to call myself a writer.

I haven't yet made a living as a full-time writer, and may never be so lucky. But I realized years ago that it's the path for me, whether it earns me five dollars or five hundred thousand dollars.

In Julia Cameron's "The Right to Write," she gives us all permission to be writers, no matter our level of talent. She tells us why we can write, and why we should write.

I am thankful for so many of the rights I am afforded...
...especially, the write one.

"The career of a writer is comparable to that

of a woman of easy virtue. You write first

for pleasure, later for the pleasure of others,

and finally for money."

—Marcel Achard