The Same Kind of Different

By Cindy Beck

Three or four years ago, when I started writing seriously and hanging out with other authors, I discovered something interesting—a lot of writers thought like me.

For most of my life, I felt I was different from those around me. Okay, I’ll admit it; my “imaginative” way of thinking had me worried that I was weird. If, while at a restaurant, my friends noticed day planners and half-consumed burgers on a table—but no occupants in the chairs—they didn’t say, “Oh look, the employees sat there for a meeting and fell through a secret portal that took them to a parallel universe where a Griffindell ate them.”

On the other hand, a group of writers would not only believe a portal to a parallel universe is a plausible explanation for vacant seats, but they’d also each make up their own scenarios to explain what happened to the occupants.

I love that. I love the fact that as writers, we come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, but that we also have a commonality. We see the same grass, sky, and people as everyone else on the planet, but we put a twist on them. And not just when writing a story, but all the time. Even when we’re sleeping.

So the next time you’re feeling as if you don’t fit in—like a radish among the roses—stop by our blog and read what we have to say. We have the same dreams you do. We love to spin a story from the recesses of our imagination and write it down. We have hope that someday (preferably sooner than later) what we write will become published.

You see, that’s why you need us and we need you … because as writers, we’re all the same kind of different.