I
have read the blogs for this month on writing tips, and I feel like my mental
inbox is overloaded. Like Tracy, I wonder what I can add to the list from my inadequate
experience. Does anyone else feel like me, that technology has grown faster
than I have, leaving me behind?
I marvel at the ability of many of you to use so much online
networking, and yet still have time to write! My head spins with all the
excellent advice offered; I feel I’m in the kindergarten class listening to
college graduates.
I risk sounding lazy and unwilling to do spadework necessary
for an accomplished writer, but perhaps I can share some ideas from a different
point of view. They might sound primitive, and you have probably already thought
them through. After all, soul-searching is part of our Christian
stock-in-trade, isn’t it?
Reading this month’s blogs, I become fearful that by not
investigating all the resources available I will fail. It constantly leads me to
the question: what constitutes a “successful” writer? Which raises the more
fundamental question: why do I write?
I find a few answers quickly. I enjoy it. I am able to
express my joys about life and concerns about the world. Above all, I can
express my deepest passion for the Gospel and its effect on life on earth. I
write what I cannot speak so easily.
But why write or speak if there is no audience? It’s my
greatest fear, and, it seems—as I peruse the means for gaining one—it is for many
of us. But, of course, there is always an audience of at least one—the One we
write for.
Well, that’s a cop out if ever I heard one. I’m not a
monastery of one debating with God; others need to know about Him. But whether I
know it or not, or even I like it or not, everything I do impinges on someone
else.
Oh! So there’s an audience out there after all! Not
necessarily one of my making, but a ready-made audience provided just by living.
That also may be a cop out for others, but for me, perhaps it’s sufficient. The
pleasure of writing is back, the pressure of seeking that audience is lessened,
if not avoided.
All this doesn’t mean I don’t do research necessary to
improve my writing. I have Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and The
Little Brown Handbook—a very comprehensive big green book!—and a dozen or
so other references and web-based resources. But I am comforted by a quote from
Strunk and White:
Your whole duty as a
writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to
an audience of one. Start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine,
and you are as good as dead, although you may make a nice living.
