A Community of Voices

Today- Leap Day- marks the date of our writing group's first posting. Our group, now known as Viking Voices, is dedicated to "giving voice" to our Parkview community of writers, poets, artists, photographers, and creative thinkers. It's a great beginning, and a blog is a powerful way to publish, comment, and share our works and our ideas. We agree to support each other as we find "voice." Our comments will be substantive and positive and helpful. I look forward to the things we can create, both individually and as a group. We talked about posting favorite quotes on this first day of blogging...what inspires us, guides us, or makes us laugh. I am reminded of Anne Lamott, one of my favorite authors, who writes:

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship. ― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

The best quote for our new beginnings on this Leap Day comes from the same author, Anne Lamott. In giving advice on getting started, she said, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”

So, let's dive in and see what comes up! Happy blogging!