4. Pity party, part 1

“If you had all the money you ever needed, what would you do for work? What would you do if you didn’t care about getting paid?”

That’s an inviting title, isn’t it?

I did not post my Lent blog yesterday and one was waiting for it. I didn’t get any emails asking where it was or if I was going to post or if I was dead.

I started writing this a number of times, but didn’t really have much to write about that didn’t have to do with how hungry I felt and how much I was looking forward to eating this morning (breakfast was delicious).

Besides, I made the mistake of looking at my readership stats.

I have a small Fb following, and even smaller Instagram audience, and a tiny mailing list. When I post a blog, I usually link it to my social media accounts and send a monthly newsletter that summarizes and includes links to all my posts and news from the month.

Most of my social media posts get 0 clicks and my monthly newsletter makes it into 100% of my subcribers’ mailboxes, about 60% of them open it, and 4% click any of the links to my blog.

So, my question dear reader writer, is why am I doing this?

In part, I do it for me. I write therefore I am a writer. I am not sure if writing is pleasurable. I am not sure if breathing is pleasurable. But I can’t not do either. So the idea of not writing this blog seems as incomprehensible as not existing.

In part, I do it because I want to be read. As I tell my students when they think poetry and literature are puzzles contrived to confuse and disorient the reader, au contraire mon frere, writers write because they want to be read and understood.

By others.

I decided I would follow the lead of my title regarding the organization of this blog and write the first 13 pieces about fasting, the next 39 about prayer, and the last 13 about writing. The final post gets to call its own shots.

Ostensibly, this post deals with writing, but, if you read closely, it is about hunger. The hunger to write, the hunger to be read, the hunger to figure out why I am called to put this out into the world even when no one is hungry—or everyone is too hungry—to have it.