Partners

Writers like time alone, and we need it. We block out the world (mostly other voices) and enter another one of our own making. Or we wander “lonely as a cloud” taking in what the natural world, or the cityscape or the night sky has to say to us. We connect and listen to what that inner writer’s voice has to say. We absorb and sort and try to make sense of what life lays before us. If we can’t be still enough to find our unique voice, we won’t get much done.

On the other hand, every writer, whether traditionally or independently published, also needs collaborators. First, critical early readers are, well, critical.

At an open mic once in Raleigh, I handed out copies of a poem I was going to present because I myself often find other people’s unfamiliar poems hard to follow at first hearing. At the end of the night, a woman thrust the poem into my hands and left. Among a few small edits, she had circled several lines and drawn an arrow: “Move these lines up here.” Her change made the poem. I still have that piece of paper, but I have no idea who she was.

In addition to critical readers, editors, book designers, illustrators, cover artists, and advisors on publishing and marketing are all necessary to bring a book from an idea to that beautiful thing on your shelf.

And finally, writers need an audience, those readers who will pick up the finished book and follow the writer into an imagined world.