For My Russian Superfans

I love it that this blog has been seen by two people in Russia. I went to my stats screen and there it was, the world map with the country of Russia showing a light green color. How cool is that? Hopefully more people in Russia--and everywhere else--will see this blog someday, but I'll take my two superfans in Russia at the moment. For all I know, they may have stumbled on my blog while Googling Butch Hobson, the famous former manager of the Boston Red Sox. Or something. But maybe not!

I prefer to think these two Russians (whom I have named Dmitri and Sasha in my imagination) actually were seeking out a blog having to do with writing. Because this is what makes writing so cool to me. And why, if you love to write, you should never, ever take it for granted or think it a waste of time. Because it, like other kinds of art, is a form through which people from all countries and walks of life strive to express themselves.

Heck, some people have to make art and then smuggle it out of their country on a USB stick hidden inside a cake! Those people don't think of art as a waste of time. Like so many other things, this shows us that we all have way more in common than we have differences, because believe you me, if I had to, I'd write one sentence a day and smuggle it out of my country in fortune cookies.

Back to my new Russian friends. Let me send you a special message: keep writing! Because, if you're anything like me, you may sometimes wonder as you write, "Hasn't this been said before? Isn't this boring?" Nonsense. Because what is commonplace in Russia is fresh and fascinating to someone living in Duluth. That's not a free pass to write poorly, though; every sentence should matter in anything you write. But in order to let your voice rise out of the cauldron of your imagination, you have to let go and just write and not let doubt sidetrack you. And that goes for anyone, American, Bolivian, Russian: what have you. Just keep writing and don't start editing until you're finished writing your first draft.

And most of all, удача!