Hello to All

**tomstrong** · 04-11-2008, 07:30 PM

Hello to all,

I find myself at the 65th mile marker on the road from embryo to corpse, and try as I might, I can't quit stringing words together in hopes that they will make sense to someone other than myself.

Writing is a lonely endeavor, and communities such as this help to take the edge off of that isolation. I am what I am, and I am here. Do with me what you will.

**Modest Me** · 04-11-2008, 07:34 PM

Hello and welcome.. Your intros kinda depressing. :/

**tomstrong** · 04-11-2008, 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by Modest Me

Hello and welcome.. Your intros kinda depressing. :/

Sorry I left that impression. In 1970-71 it was my great good fortune to have been a colleague (of sorts) of Harry Crews at the University of Florida. He was a writer-in-residence who also taught freshman English, and I was a graduate student teaching freshman English on an assistantship. Back then Crews was a guy who loved people. He was a brilliant conversationalist. He had, at the time, published his first three novels, and he often said he had only one regret that he had taken up the craft of writing. He regretted that while he was writing about his favorite subject -- people -- he had to cut himself off from them. I knew what he meant. Writing is indeed a lonely endeavor. It demands time and attention that the non-writer might give to his friends and family. This is especially true of the writer who also has a "day job".

So, writing is lonely and demanding -- but depressing? Not for me. I find it exhilarating.

**chimchimski** · 04-11-2008, 08:54 PM

Hello Tom! Welcome to the forum!!

Hey..I liked your intro...you're just being real.

I'm Chimmy, by the way. Enjoy your time here... it really is a great community!