They love me; they love me not

This post is for the three or four of you who wonder what it's like to make a "living" publishing your thoughts - thoughts you hope will interest, entertain or enlighten readers. Take a walk at the writer's side; here's how my week went:

Since I've been doing this blog, I've been paying attention to other people's. Many impress me - with quality of writing or acuteness of perception or design slash execution. Or all three.

I suspect that most cycling bloggers do it for free, impressing me further. Think of the time and effort invested, no charge.

Early this week, I followed a link to Dave Moulton's Bike Blog. As I wrote in a earlier post, not only does he focus on some the same aspects of cycling that I do, I fear that he expresses his thoughts more powerfully. Certainly, he writes from strength, having lived the cycling life for virtually half a century. He's the real thing for sure.

We're lucky to have a voice like his a mouse-click away. A few years ago, we had How to Ride your First Century in Bicycling Magazine every twelve issues. We had the Ten Energy Bar Shootout and chain-lube torture tests. We had race reports and EuroPro fan magazines.

Now we have individuals chatting with us about every-damn-thing, soliciting our responses and publishing our thoughts alongside their own. Many of these bloggers could sell their work, I'm sure of it, but they give it away - remarkable.

I became low-level depressed by the breadth and acuity of the thoughts expressed on Dave Moulton's blog. Then I clicked on a link on the VeloNews site and discovered an amazingly clever, insightful blog about urban cycling culture: NYCbikesnob.

The bikesnob's writing is polished, the observations perfect, the design lowkey and professional; the result is funny as hell without trying too hard. It's as if a Seinfeld writer rode a bike in the Apple and wrote a blog. I'd suspect that is precisely the case, but the blog predates the writers' strike.

By Thursday, thanks to Moulton and the bikesnob, I was feeling unworthy. Why go on, I asked myself. These other guys do it so much better...

Still in a bluish mood, I checked out the VeloNews site online, I saw that the legal writer, Bob Mionske, had submitted a column about a rally in Portland, OR. The phrase "civil disobedience" appeared in his piece - civil disobedience in reaction to what seems like worsening disregard from drivers, the courts and the popular press.

Gosh, I thought, that's right down my editorial alley...

I had just offered Ben Delaney at VeloNews two columns in a few weeks, both dealing with my obsession, car wars: Our struggle to be granted respect as road-users and simply as human beings.

I send columns to VeloNews because I have several years of history there. The magazine has national and international readership, the readers are savvy and intensely interested in the sport, and because VN pays me promptly and pretty well for stories.

VN has not been interested in car-wars stories; it's a racing paper after all. But I send those stories to Ben Delaney anyway. I like his style in email communication; he tells me if he isn't interested in a piece but I never feel that he doesn't look forward to seeing more of them.

I considered the Mionke article a change of direction for VN, a change (I hoped) in my direction. I wrote Ben Delaney, mentioning the Mionske piece and the Portland rally and the words "civil disobedience." I went on to suggest that the piece I'd just sent him focused on concerted action from us cyclists. Did the Mionske piece signal VN's intention to run more pieces like his?

And Delaney told me that VN is starting a Soapbox section and that perhaps the piece I'd sent him before the last one might be just right for it. I found that piece on my hard drive. I searched my sent emails to see if I'd offered it elsewhere. I discovered that I had not. I pasted the piece into an email and sent it to Delaney. Is that the one, I asked him.

That's it, he responded. Yours, I said.

Cool, he said. Suddenly, I forgot about Dave Moulton and the NYCbikesnob. I remembered that I'd been selling my work here and there for 20 years plus. Ben Delaney likes it. Others must like it. Perhaps the visitors to my blog like my work. Why else....?

I hope you do like my work. Thanks for stopping by.