My friend Cate Gable has a column in the Chinook Observer every week.  Every single week!  I am full of admiration about that on all counts.  First, that she finds interesting subjects to write about week after week.  Second, that she has the time to do the research and meet her deadlines.  And, finally, that she soldiers on whether or not she gets kudos or criticism or no feedback at all.

We’ve never really talked about any of those things, but now that my “Elementary, My Dear” column is appearing in the paper each month, I am more sensitive to such problems.  Even though I have four times as long as she does to gather my thoughts and get them to the editor, I sometimes struggle with what to say, how to say it, yada yada yada.

But it’s the feedback issue that is the biggee for me.  Fortunately, with a monthly column appearing in a weekly paper, there is often quite some time between submission and publication.  And, with my mind being what it is (I like to say I’m busy with other things), I don’t seem to have as much ownership of my words by the time the article comes out.  That certainly softens the effect of any criticism coming my way.

But, truth to tell, so far feedback has been gratifying – and usually quite ‘general’ in nature.  “I enjoy reading your articles in the paper,” people say to me.   I glow.  Sometimes they go on to mention a subject and sometimes I know for a fact that I didn’t write that article I’m being given credit for.  I thank them anyway.  Why embarrass them by pointing out that I am not who they think I am?  (Usually they have me confused with Cate – which is just fine with me!!)

This past week my article about reading to children elicited more feedback than usual.  First was a phone call from a man in Raymond who told me he was a logger and who remembered that his teacher, also, had read The Nickel Plated Beauty to him in third grade.  “That’s a long time ago,” he said.  “I’m 57 now.”  He didn’t remember who the teacher was or what the book was about, but my words brought back happy memories for him and he wanted me to know.  I was inordinately pleased!

On Sunday, a very tall gentleman approached me after Vespers, saying he had come especially to meet me after reading what I wrote in the Observer.  He was not specific about what column prompted his comments, but I loved what he said.  He told me that I wrote about things with “the perfect balance of logic and emotion.”  I was stunned and didn’t have the wits to ask for an example.  Actually, I was afraid that he, too, might have mistaken me for someone else – even though he did preface his remarks with “Are you Sydney Stevens?”

In any case, I am grateful for all the folks who give me any kind of feedback for things I write.  It’s about the only way we writers know how we are being received out there or even IF we are being received.  That and selling enough books to put us on the NYT Best Seller List…