Hubba,Hubba! The Importance of our HubPages

Despite the serious and sometimes downright upsetting content of my writings, I DO actually have quite a good time creating my Hubs! I have been thinking about this for the last few weeks, watching my writing score inch up painful point by painful point. I have started to venture into Hubland, and I have discovered that there is absolutely no subject that is untouched on this site. I thought I was so OH-Riginal in wanting to write about writing for HubPages...until I checked and found all sorts of tributes and commentaries on writing Hubs. <sigh> I suppose if I wanted to write about how to attach a really thick night-crawler to a fishing hook, there would be somebody, somewhere who has already written about it first!

I tried to think of why writing for this site is so darned appealing...besides the potential for earning glory and money and all that. At first, I could not pin it down. I learned really fast that concentrating on your Hub Score can be a lot like watching a plant grow. If I sit there, and just study it intensely, I don't see a darned thing happening. But when I check back from time to time, well, looky here! A few brave souls actually read what i write and my score moves...it can go up a point, down a point or maybe (and this is REALLY exciting!!!) I might actually have a new fan or even a comment! So you could say that I first started out thinking of this site as if this neat niche on the Internet was really an elitist computer game for writers.....

Inevitably, I learned pretty quickly that this site does not work like The Legend of Zelda or even that wonderful oldie-but-goodie Doom....(remember how fake the blood looked??? I thought the hue and cry over the "violence" of the game was a bit overdone!) (But I am digressing...and if you are not Stephen King, you really should not digress...LOL!) No, writing a new Hub suddenly became much more personal for me. I found myself baring my soul and sharing my innards with complete abandon, all the while praying that even the most secret of my secrets would find an audience. Which did happen for me, bit by exciting bit...

So what was driving me to write? I finally stumbled on the answer while chatting with my best friend on the phone one night. He wanted to play a song for me on his new electric violin, and I was happy to listen as he played his music fifteen hundred miles away in Pennsylvania. I realized that he was excited because he knew that someone was going to share in his performance. Ah! That was the secret! The fun of writing on HubPages comes from the chance of catching an audience!

You know that old riddle about the tree that falls in the forest? If no one is there to hear it fall, does it actually make any noise? Before, I used to write pretty much in my journals, once in a while wondering if after my death, anyone in my family would bother to read what I had put in those pages. Now, when I create a Hub, I can pretty much be sure that there is someone in the forest, listening. That someone is YOU! I am writing for YOU right now, and it is a challenge and a joy. YOU make me correct my grammar and spelling, and cause me to pause and consider what word would be the perfect word in the perfect spot. The points and the chance to earn some money seem secondary to the opportunity to entertain, educate, amuse or even move to tears another human being.

The gift of having an audience for my writing is absolutely priceless. For me, that is the real bliss of creating a new Hub Page. That is the greatest gift anyone can give a person who creates anything- music, art, poetry, dance- anything. Yes, there is joy in the doing of it...but boy, it sure is great to hear a room burst into applause after you are done. Your comments and traffic on my hub are like applause for me, and have encouraged me to keep at this. One has to be honest- it can be sort of sad to practice the piano for years, and never play it for anyone but yourself.

So I am going to grow with the site, explore the forum, and start critiquing and reading other Hubs- all of it. For just as you are my audience, so am I yours!

Blessings,

Jai