I have no idea how things get patched in cyberspace, but I am assuming that it does not require the likes of a thimble, needle, and thread. Disposing of the worm does not require touching the untouchable and tossing it back into the dirt outside the back door. I am guessing that patches are easier to find in cyberspace than they are in the twenty-first century shopping mall.

All of this has got me thinking about blogging. That insidious worm is blogging its way through open spaces. A wide open page invites bloggers to blog, making their way into unpatched territory because they can. Lately, I have been inundated with blogs. Some days as I make my way through numerous holes I feel as though I am an aimless Alice, having lost my way, having no idea where this wiggling and wriggling is taking me. Blogs are linked to other blogs, just as the worm finds the hole in the overalls on the other side of the linen napkin. My day is spent and the mending still awaits my attention.

It is interesting to ponder Ms. Lansford’s remark about her own writing education. It did not, she says, include writing for an audience. I remember having that same revelation as a teacher of writing to elementary students. Having an audience was necessary, I told them. And yet I too remember essays written for a single teacher’s eyes only. I would venture a guess that students in classrooms all over the world write more frequently and with greater purpose than I did as a child. Writing takes on more of an immediacy. Students cannot wait to share their writing with classmates. They write for an audience. The Stanford students’ comments on their experiences as participants in the writing study confirm that writing for them is a means of communication. Reason enough, I think, for rejoicing.

Perhaps Ms. Lansford is right. Perhaps we are in the midst of a monumentally important literacy revolution. What do you think?

I am reminded of the story of a young child, hard at work behind the easel at his preschool. His teacher, viewing the tempura paint masterpiece in progress, exclaimed, “Why, Johnny, you are going to be an artist when you grow up!” You can guess his indignant retort: “I already am an artist.” Indeed.

And so are you a writer if you make a regular habit of putting words on a page. Let this become your mantra: “I am a writer.” Believe it. Look in the mirror and say these words to yourself:

I AM A W R I T E R.

Then tell your dog. Tell your neighbor, your aunt, your friend, your coworker, every stranger you meet. . .” Soon, it should slip easily off your tongue without the urge to use any qualifiers.

Ready? Keep chanting as you grab your notebook of daily scribbles. Targets set,  join your writing group for coffee, remembering that being a writer is a criteria for being in a writing group.

The Moth, a nonprofit group who sponsors storytelling events in New York and Los Angeles, was formed by poet and novelist George Dawes Green. His move to New York took him far from the gossamer arthropods that lingered to hear stories on his Southern family’s porch. He missed them — the stories, that is — and the community that ensued. And so, he began to  invite others to his city apartment to hear and tell stories. Three or four people became thirty or forty and before long he was looking for additional room to host his new community of friends.

One of the photos that accompanied the newspaper article showed people lined up around the block, anxious to hear and tell stories. The article was largely about how a forum for the everyday man and woman had grown into a place where professionals are now regulars, hoping to be noticed by agents who frequent the halls. But it is the initial idea that inspired my response to the article. I would love to reproduce that storytelling community here in Charlottesville. And WriterHouse seems a likely place to try it out because that’s what we are — storytellers!

After visiting Moth’s website, I learned that Moth encourages spin-offs, even helps others get something off the ground. They call it “MothUP – The Living Room Satellite Moth.” Storytelling evenings would complement the already popular WriterHouse-sponsored readers’ evenings. They just might attract a new audience of writers into our fold, those who like to perform their stories, in the style of Garrison Keillor or Ira Glass. If anyone else has any interest in this, I invite you to visit the website at www.themoth.org and let me know what you think.

Yesterday I had a mournful email from a friend. Pat and I are writing pals. We met at a writer’s conference nearly ten years ago. At the close of the conference, she suggested that we keep in touch with one another through weekly freewrites. The telephone, paper, and pen are our tools. We talk every week, alternating callers. The caller is responsible for having a topic to write about (a single word or phrase, a passage from a book, a snippet of a poem). Once delivered, we hang up, write furiously, and call back in twenty minutes to share. I now must have as many notebooks as Natalie Goldberg! While mine collect dust, Pat has turned hers into a novel. She has had it workshopped and is searching for an agent.

A few days ago she called excitedly, ready to break open the champagne. An agent was interested. We raised our metaphoric bubbling flutes to her meteoric success. Last night, the broken shards of glass lay strewn across my desk as I read her disappointment. “His cruel words rocketed through me. I am taking to my bed,” Pat wrote.

Pat’s rejection has prompted the posting of my first blog. Here, I figure, the stakes are low. Blogs are a little like our weekly freewrites. They connect us and give us empathetic listeners. I am hopeful that we can generate ideas and ponder questions together — and be there for one another to pick up the broken pieces.