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February 16, 2015

Celebrating my 400th Article at elephant journal & How You can Write too!

  elephant illustration

400 articles. I can’t believe it.

How on God’s green earth have I managed to produce 400 articles for elephant journal in just a year and a half?

I suppose it’s not that surprising—I write almost as much as I breathe and elephant journal (e.j.) has wide parameters for the work they love.

e.j. has been the ultimate place to voice my opinions, dissect my many personal hang ups, explore literary writing and share my passion for vegan cooking, reiki and yoga. By doing so I have found a like- minded community of millions of (mostly) compassionate seekers who have (pretty much) accepted me with open arms—I won’t dwell on those voices few and far between who scoff at my humble musings.

One of the many things I love about elephant is that it is truly a forum for the people. You don’t have to have a fancy literary degree or any particular resume to be published here—you simply have to have something important to say and to say it with a reasonable amount of eloquence, kindness and veracity—and you’re in. We are not owned by any corporation and we don’t bow to sponsors—and that changes our content dramatically.

You won’t find the unique and honest voices you find here anywhere else, because no one else values those voices as highly.

I would like to use this, my 400th article, to urge you—if you’ve had any kind of inkling or flash of an idea to do so—to write and submit your own words. I imagine all of you—my intelligent, fascinating, heart-bound fellow readers—waking up one morning and setting pen to paper (or index finger to keyboard, as the case will likely be).

What would you say?

Would you tell us about the time you found a hermit crab on the beach one summer vacation and snuck him home in your backpack, tending to him carefully for years and years until one day he simply disappeared from his lovely little aquarium never to be heard from again? And how that represented the unavoidable fact of change, and that you always mourned that modest crab as if he were something much more important, like—for example—a dog, because you were a very odd child.

(Oh darn it—that’s another one of my stories.)

But perhaps you will tell us of your strange, maladjusted family, or the trip you took to Nepal and what you learned there, or the revelation you had during an inexplicably stiff, or an unexpectedly limber downward facing dog.

Maybe you will write about an amazing meal you made, how you made it and who you served it to, or about the patterns of snowflakes as they weave through the still, grey air outside your window and settle silently upon the ground.

Maybe you will write about the baby you had or didn’t have or wanted or didn’t want, or about the drugs you’ve done or didn’t do or won’t ever do again.

Maybe you will write about your first love, your last love, your lost love, or the love you’ve never known.

Maybe you will write about the sadness that seeps into all the edges, or the happiness that still filters through.

And when you are done, maybe you will sign your name and maybe you will not. Maybe you will send the scary missive to elephant journal with your words attached, all naked and vulnerable and about to shoot off into the stratosphere to be welcomed and loved and judged and accepted and rejected by people you do and do not know—and maybe you won’t.

But whatever you do, you are thinking now—what would I write?

And if you do decide to write, you know where to send it, and if you do send it there, you can count me among your first and faithful readers.

Here’s to 400 more!

 

Check out some of Erica’s tasty recipes and delectable reads:

 

The Gift of Being Not-Loved.

Ask Me Anything: Relationship Red Flags (Weekly Advice Column).

The 7 Indisputable Keys To Good Health.

Really, Yoga Journal? 

Easy & Elegant Red Lentil Soup With White Wine & Fresh Thyme. {Vegan Recipe}

Husband, Son; Dog, Dog.

 

Author: Erica Leibrandt

Editor: Renée Picard 

Image: Caroline at Flickr 

 

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