I come from sturdy stock. My mother was a no nonsense kinda woman, raised in the Ozarks. She was born of even sturdier parents whose ancestors crossed the Carolinas in a Conestoga wagon to eventually raise my mother in a one-room log cabin in Arkansas. My mother grew up during a time of devotion to neighborly deeds and barn raisings.
In case you don't know what a barn raising is, it's when neighbors come from miles away to work together to build a barn in one day. The men do the hard labor and the women keep them fed. Together the goal is achieved and everyone celebrates the successes of the day.
By now you probably know where I'm going with all of this. Barn raising and book writing have a lot in common. You can't build a barn on your own and a book will never make it to publication all by itself.
Friends, family, critique partners, agents, editors, illustrators, publishers...the list is almost endless yet a book is born through the efforts of people coming together for a single purpose. The methods may be a bit different from barn raisings but the camaraderie and celebration of a job well done remains the same.
As a writer, I've been blessed these past three years to be a part of a community full of writing "neighbors" eager to help me raise a book "barn" of my own. Even when they have to decline helping me raise that barn at the moment, they are still cheering me on from the sidelines with the promise of coming to my aid some time in the future when I need them again. I like that. It reminds me I don't have to do this all on my own. That I will have a chance to help someone else raise their own book barn, celebrating THEIR successes along the way and that's a right neighborly way to be...
