Hearing Voices

When I read your blogs, I imagine you speaking the words to me. Some of you have slow, drawling voices, while others have faster paced cadences with accents different from mine. I won’t tell you which blogger I’ve dubbed with a Daffy Duck voice. (I kid! I kid!) Of course, all of these voices are made up in my imagination because I’ve never heard a blogging friend actually speak, that is until this weekend.

I was thrilled to have a wonderful phone visit with a dear blogging friend who’s asked me to collaborate on a writing project with her. Not only that, I will be getting to speak soon with another amazing blogging friend who’s asked me for my opinion on parts of one of her novels.

I’ve been thinking about our blogging community. Some scoff and say it’s not real; the virtual world is a sad excuse for socialization. However, I’m with the other group who fervently backs the idea that the blogging neighborhoods are just as real and vibrant as any other social network. Only two people in my daily life know I blog, or even that I write anything other than grant proposals. You all know me much better in a literary sense than most of my friends.

And even though I will never get to attach the real voice to most of my blog neighbors, I count each of you as friends. That’s what blogging has done for me: connected me with incredible people I would never have met otherwise.

How about you? Have you ever spoken with any of your blogging friends you didn’t already know, or even met up with some of them? Is it something you’d like to do if you haven't?

And I put up a short recording of my own voice on a past post, in case you’d like to hear it, although the giveaway I talk about is already over. Click here: Shelly's Voice (This will take you to a Sound Cloud page. It should start playing automatically when you open the page.) Yep, that’s a sure fire Texas accent all the way through it.