Finding Your Tribe

Do you hear that? That my friends is the sound of me typing away. Last weekend was the annual Pennwriters conference and I came home with a renewed enthusiasm for writing. My love for writing has never died, but I have to say that sometimes daily life has done it's best to break us up.

I wrote a blog post a few years back called Breathing lessons. It was written after another Pennwriters conference. Reading it today, I realize how much it all still applies. I had to learn to breathe again. Immersing myself into a conference like this is so essential for getting my mind where it needs to be. As I said then, as writers we lose ourselves in another world. But the real world fights us to get out of our heads and stay in the present. I know balance is important, but lately I've felt the scales tipping too far into the real world. I feel it in my restlessness, in my need to daydream, even in my over the top reaction to small annoyances. My heart knows when there is a problem way before I do. This conference was a way to tip the scale back where it belongs.

Which brings me to title of this post. A major difference from a few years ago is that now my writing journey isn't so solitary. Our group of two has expanded into a much larger group within the place we call home. In addition, our conference group has grown from two into four (plus one adopted out of towner.) We've become known as the Buffalo Gals by conference goers. Each conference that we attend is a chance to catch up with people we met years ago, as well as meeting someone new. And with the available social media options you're able to keep in touch long after the conference ends. So even if you met someone once, or only shared a laugh during a seminar, you still feel like you have a common connection. You can reach out on Twitter to see who's writing, retweet a post, or commiserate over a writing problem. Knowing they are out there writing, however far away, makes things seem less lonely. These are the people who help me breathe. These are the people who understand what I mean when I say the real world is overwhelming me. This is my tribe....

Thank you for helping me breathe. 

~ Adrienne