Back when I became a professional writer, I thought that one of the best things about this life would be the solitude. That I could be by myself day after day and do my thing in my office with the huge window overlooking the north woods and enjoy not having to talk to anyone. (You might deduce from this that I’d make a good hermit. If that would be your conclusion, you’d be right.)

But over time, something happened. I  met other writers and wanna-be writers and readers in person. At a writers’ group I joined and simply in conversation with people who, as became apparent in conversation, loved to read.

Then another thing happened when the world went digital and I went digital along with it. I met still more people online, through chat groups and email and Facebook and Goodreads and Twitter and every other way of communicating that has been invented since the internet came into existence — and, believe me, there are a lot of ways and I’ve at least tried out a majority of them even if I don’t keep up with all of them! And those people I met online turned out to be as wonderful and interesting as those I’d met in person.

So the writing life hasn’t been as solitary as I thought it would be. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m so glad that I’ve met so many wonderful people through being a writer that maybe the hermit life wouldn’t be for me after all.