Scott

Dec 24, 2019

James,

Thank you for appearing on the Third Rail, your contribution was unexpected and welcome.

I had not heard of you before, and as of now have read little of your work, but housing the tortured soul of a writer myself, I believe you have inspired me to finally conjure a blog so that I have somewhere to put my writing outside of my notebooks and facebook posts that nobody sees.

Having a blog might also inspire (or force?) me to create more, if there is a chance somebody else might stumble across it.

I typically only write during inspired bouts of mania, but I know that I can write outside of that rare condition, if I could just make myself, somehow.

I think I've been a writer-in-denial for a long time, but I recently became unable to contain my enthusiasm for a woman I quickly found myself romantically involved with, and the conditions were such that it naturally led to me writing her a personalized poem followed by an obscenely effusive yelp review of her restaurant.

She understandably put the brakes on our relationship almost immediately afterward, but at least I learned something about myself - my mind's eye is brimming with images, and my soul is teeming with words with which I must translate them.

Whenever my world starts to wobble on it's axis and my heart is jostled in it's cage, my insides come spilling out onto a page, dripping over margins and soaking through sheets.

I've basically come to terms, finally, at 36, with the fact that I am a writer. All that is left now is to manifest that identity, and

somehow I think you have helped nudge me into the light.

Thank You.