Erin Lodes

A couple days ago I received an email from someone who saw a story of mine entitled “Counterpoint” in a book he came across in a hotel in Dublin. He complimented my writing and wanted to know where he could find a copy of the story to share with his girlfriend. That is incredible for a multitude of reasons.

1. Holy shit someone saw my writing somewhere and took the time to look me up online and write me to tell me so.
2. He saw it in Ireland, which is not where I’m from but it is somewhere I lived for two years and where I met my husband.
3. The story he was talking about was my first serious short story (meaning it went through multiple revisions and even critique from other writers).
4. It was my first professionally (read: I got paid real money for it) published short story.

This wonderful confidence-boosting email man asked where he could find that story online. This story was first called “Cottage by the Sea” and then “A Piece of the Wind.” “Counterpoint” became the title when the person purchasing the story requested that title as it was the theme of their art pieces. This story is not currently available anywhere online, but I am going to be posting it in my next blog post, which means there will be fiction writing on here now.

I re-read the story and I can definitely see how my writing has grown in the four years since I’ve written it. There are so many changes I would make now, but I’m not going to, because someone liked it enough as it was to seek me out online and contact me about it. It’s a big step for me to post something I would like to change, but if he liked it that much, then I can certainly be happy about it.

So I hope you, whoever you are reading this blog, like it too.

Anyway that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?