What JRW Means to Me
In honor of the 10th anniversary of James River Writers, we’ve asked our members, “What does JRW mean to you?”
Cynthia Baldini shares her novel-publishing struggles and her feelings about JRW in the following poem, “Unpublished Writer.”
Expedience
via Google and Wikipedia
is removing pertinence
from printed books of reference.
I wonder …
should I still get books
at the library?
Or download them for free?
This is not a question of literary insight
but of monetary right,
that could soon pertain to me.
Each purchase puts a royalty
in the writer’s wallet.
I ought to buy the books I read,
the writer in me says.
I rarely did before-
before I wrote, that is.
I’ve been a library patron,
paying a price only for books on
philosophy or how-tos
since I wouldn’t read or use
that novel for a second time.
Why would an author write at all
without monetary compensation?
How could he or she survive?
Yet reading has already been free at the library
and writing stayed alive.
If purchase were the only choice
what then of those
who can’t afford to buy?
But I argue—what’s the sense?
Why write a book that can be read for free?
A writer has to live, I say in my defense.
Yet, as a child,
reading books from the library
was what I did.
I read voraciously.
If my parents had to spend
as much as I read …
well, they couldn’t, so I wouldn’t have read as much,
wouldn’t have known there exists
such an enormous universe
of possibilities.
As a new author, I consider this.
I’ve written a book; a novel.
I want to be read, but
I find the publishing industry
to be impenetrable.
I want to my book to sell.
I want people to quote me,
“Such and so,” she said.
If no one reads it,
was my work wasted?
I laced my words together well.
Will readers like my plot … or not?
My characters, too?
I want to know.
I wrote my story,
enjoying it so,
choosing my words,
threading thoughts,
bringing ideas to fruition,
weaving truth into my fiction.
Now where does it go?
I want someone to appreciate
the world I created.
I want to hold my book in my hand,
tangible evidence
of my erudition.
After JRW lectures that provided insight;
and the conference, direction …
finally … the writer in me
thinks her book is good enough.
She may be right.
Now, good or bad,
she wants her book to see the light.
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