Belong, Belonging, Beloved. A little love letter to us, my Wordsmith Studio friends, on our first anniversary.

Yesterday I finally fell into work in the studio. I set all projects aside and simply created from my heart, created for you and for this post.

I love improvisational work, nothing feels better or truer.

It can be hard to let go, to be free, to be true. This kind of work is dangerous. What if people don’t like it? What if you…who are so important to me and so in my heart… what if you don’t like it? But it’s the purest offering I can give you.

Let’s talk about this insane thing we did. A year ago this April, we came together, complete strangers, over a challenge to grow our on-line presence at Robert Brewer’s My name is not Bob blog.
We took a chance. We built our platforms, we circled each other, we followed each other, we read each other and we liked each other…but then we found out that we really did like each other and we started to support each other, to share more than just our work.

We come from different corners of the world and every walk of life, but when we are asked what are we doing this for, our answers are:
Because it makes us happy.
Because it makes others happy.
Because, as our skills develop, we can feel ourselves developing as writers, as poets, as artists, as photographers.
Because the language of our art is ancient and we want to speak it proficiently.
Because we always knew we would do creative work.
Because at one point in our lives we decided to finally do what we wanted to do all along.
Because we never want to give up.
Because what we do takes courage.
Because we believe there is value in being vulnerable.
Because sharing is good.
Because it makes us laugh and cry.
Because it’s good for our soul.
Because we believe in each other.
Because we love to and because we want to, and each time we are asked we think of seventeen more reasons.

And sometimes the work is not a joy, sometimes it is forced and no one, including our own brave little heart, believes we can do it, but we carry on.

Here we all are together, birds of a feather.
And tomorrow we will be braver and work on, and tomorrow we will be less tired and tomorrow we will share some more of our hearts with each other.

And we will create.

In the end it’s the best way we know how to give.
A careless unveiling and then, and then we will stand in the light and shine.

And to my heart we belong together in our group.

In my heart you are worthy of belonging and you are beloved.

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Veronica Roth