What JRW Means to Me

Cynthia Baldini
 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cynthia Baldini shares her novel-publishing struggles and her feelings about JRW in the following poem, “Unpublished Writer.”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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