If a story falls on deaf ears...

Tonight, four of us who met in a First Person Narrative class at the Loft met again to share our writing with each other and discus it.  I appreciated having people read and/or hear read to them the story I wrote... the third version of a writing exercise that began in the class.  We were largely agreed that I could now call it done and move on to something new.  My goal is now to continue doing something with the story fragment I posted a few days ago.  And it was equally satisfying to hear the others' work and talk about the many excuses that keep us from doing what we obviously love to do.

So, another haiku, this time with the theme of "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?":

I write a story.
No reader, no listener.
Is it a story?

I fall into the trap of believing there is no point in writing if there isn't something to DO with the finished piece. The answer is clearer than the zen koan that inspired it...  it's still a story.  I have, as Julia Cameron says, "The Right to Write."  If a piece of writing doesn't ever find an audience, it's still a piece of writing.  Maybe just not a piece of "reading."  And thanks to the peculiar world of electronic media, my writing may never have to cause a tree to fall in the forest and be turned into paper pulp.  But maybe one day it will!