About a week ago, out of the blue I got a text from my mother that said, “We have tickets to see Jodi Picoult speak!” While a little random, I was excited. I have read just about every book she’s written, including the one she’s promoting right now and while I will be the first to admit it’s chick lit (and she calls it commerical fiction and makes no bones about it), I love just about every one.

My husband mocked me mercilessly for going, but as usual, I ignored him and got ready. I also bought him a book while there. Heh.

She started with a reading of her new book and then opened the floor for questions. In case you didn’t know, the lady is hilarious. And down to earth and sarcastic. I’m pretty confident that if she just let me hang out with her that we’d be best friends.

The highlight of the night was when someone asked her about the book My Sister’s Keeper and the movie version that came out last year. The woman that she loved the book, but wondered why the movie was so different (and crappy). And Jodi (yea, that’s right, I’m calling her by her first name) answered that she agreed and was glad to finally be able to talk about it. She said that giving up a book to a movie producer is like giving up a child for adoption. You can’t call every day and see they the child is doing, and some kids get raised by lovely intelligent families, go on to college and become great things, and others? Are raised by crack whores.

I almost died laughing.

It was an evening that felt like I was chatting with a friend, not having a professional writer talk to me. She inspired me to want to write. She writes everyday from 7:30 to 3:20, no matter what. She writes when she doesn’t feel like it, she writes when she has no idea where her story is going. She sits down, reads the chapter she’s on or the chapter she just finished and then writes.

And she said something that hit home with me. She said that you can always go back and edit crappy writing later, but you can’t edit a blank page.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down here, typed up an entire post, decided it wasn’t important enough, or funny enough or some version of enough and deleted it on the spot. My writing has felt stagnant lately and maybe it’s because I’m not giving myself a chance to grow. Instead of trying to improve a crappy first draft, I’m walking away. I know that I don’t have time to write every day (a group of people just let out a big grateful sigh about that), but the more I write the more I remember why I started doing it in the first place.

I read a blog the other day where a woman said that she writes for page views and money, plain and simple and that anyone who doesn’t, isn’t blogging, they’re journalling. I didn’t comment on it, but I totally took offense. And then I thought, why? Why do I care? If I’m doing things the way I want and I’m happy, then who cares that someone else is doing the same thing for a different reason? You can call this a journal, you can call it a blog, but really, it’s semantics. And frankly, I don’t give a crap. It’s writing.

I have google analytics and I check it a couple times a week, but I don’t and never will, write for blog traffic. I have BlogHer ads because I support the BlogHer company, I like what they stand for, and it has allowed me to connect with women who write about similar things and has shown my blog to others who have found support here. If I never saw another dime from blogging, I would keep doing it exactly the way I am, because it’s not about the money.

I write because I want to get things out of my head. I write because I want to share an experience. I write because I get support and belong to a community of men and women who write some of the best stuff I’ve read to date. I write because it enriches my life, because it makes me feel like me. I write because I like to.

And I’ll probably never stand up in front of an audience of people and read from a best selling book, or give advice to a group of (almost all) women on writing. But I will continue to write for me. To grow as a writer, a “journalist” and a story teller.

I will continue to write for the love of writing and for all that love has given me in return.

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