'Just go, Alicia, go'

"One time I read a quote by Chuck Berry. And he was basically laughing that he'd made so much money selling the music he'd written, that it just came to him so easy...Now to me, Chuck Berry invented rock and roll. And I cannot picture putting together words and chords in the way he did for the first time ever.And yet to him it was so easy he just laughed that people were gullible enough to pay him.You have something of that kind of talent in your writing, and in your telling to me of this story, I can feel the old you....."

That man...

I have no words. But when I feel as if I can't do this--that I'm not good enough...that my work isn't good enough--there's always him telling me to 'Go Alicia...go.'

I get frustrated too often. I forget that I am a good writer. I forget that I DO have a story to tell worth reading. I forget that this is what I was born to do.

I forget.
I hurt.
I doubt.
I wonder.

I recall conversations where he compared me to some of the greatest literary talents in the world and then told me I was better than them. Better? Me? And I think...gosh...I'm really no one. And maybe his word wouldn't carry so much weight if he didn't happen to be one of the most brilliant, clear-thinking individuals I have ever known. (The second person is Crystal--she's amazing and resilient and thinks the world of me...and coming from a person like that, it means ALOT.)

I got that in my email today and I read it 1000 times at least. I want to thank him for that. I needed that.

I needed to remember because I tend to forget way too much these days.

Thank you M. Thank you...