As writers we examine our audience and try to figure out how to best please them. We say we write for ourselves, but we love the recognition that receiving comments and feedback from our audience brings. There’s nothing wrong with that; however when pleasing our audience begins to encroach on our writing, I think it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate.
First and foremost, I write for me. I put fingers to keys and more preferably, pen to paper because if I don’t I would be one more step towards crazy. I must write. Even if it is just a list of what I did during the day, my brain needs to have the outlet of recording something.
The desire to write, and write well is lodged deep within my heart. I remember the day I decided I wanted to be a writer and I also can look back and see how that dream was crushed, buried, and pushed aside. So now, I write because I know it is my calling and to deny that would be tragic.
A few weeks ago I was speaking with an extremely talented friend of mine. At one point she took up a hobby, let’s say it was painting. She ate, slept and breathed painting and even started looking at schools to attend to improve her skill. Then one day, someone very important to her said these words, “You’ll never be able to make it in art school.” My friend packed up her oils and pastels, her easels and smocks and has yet to pick up another brush. Her talent is gone because one very important person didn’t think before she spoke.
I tell that story not to just drive home the point of thinking before you speak, but to also remind myself that one human’s opinion of me or my work cannot define my art or my craft. The only person that can define it is Jesus.
Now, while I knew I wanted to be a writer from early on, I didn’t star a blog three years ago with the idea that I was fulfilling my calling. Instead I started a blog as a way to not go crazy while I was pregnant with my third child in less than four years. To look back on that, I might have already been crazy. No, I just started writing because I didn’t know what else to do. Everything else fell into place after that.
Today’s Challenge: I’d love to hear how you started blogging and what your dream for your writing is. No dream is too big or small. None of this, “I started blogging because I was bored. The end.” No, craft a story. Make it interesting. Make me understand why you worry yourself silly about things like SEO, grammar, and why we all just don’t give up?
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Elisa Pulliam says
April 6, 2012 at 8:18 amYour post is so filled with grace and hope. I needed that in terms of my online ministry and writing this morning.
I write as a way to process life and to give the overflow of what I feel God has given me. That’s why I started blogging in 2006. But because I’ve been on a journey of figuring out who I am and what the Lord wants me to become, my blogging and online writing has changed a number of time over the years. I feel it as been very much refined by God, and is now it is about conveying Biblical truth in a practical way that can be used by teens and twenty-somethings and their moms and mentors. It is a style of writing that I thoroughly enjoy, but it is also still a craft that I need to hone. It is also a bit of a lonely writing experience, as I seem to not quite fit in with what is online, but yet I sense I am to press on in this pursuit regardless.
Thanks for your encouragement to write from my heart and not from what I see around me.
Blessings,
Lisa
Anonymous says
April 8, 2012 at 10:22 pmLisa,
your last sentece says it all…”write from my heart and not what I see around me.” So true, friend. Thank you for your comment.
Ashley Ditto says
April 6, 2012 at 3:51 pmAmen to this. I struggle so much with the fact that I am small blog and that I don’t get many followers and comments…but then God told me to not care. Write for Him and no one else. It’s been a journey, but I am learning that its okay if I am small and I am growing in Him.
Anonymous says
April 8, 2012 at 10:20 pmso very true!
Pink Dryer Lint says
April 6, 2012 at 5:01 pmI don’t know any person who hasn’t struggled with comparison, and no matter where you fall on the spectrum — whether you think you’re doing worse than someone, or whether you think you’re doing better — you never come out a winner.
Thanks for a thoughtful post.
Anonymous says
April 8, 2012 at 10:21 pmThank you for your comment. Yes, I think all of us have struggled with comparison and I think it is one of the biggest ways we get distracted…by looking at “her”.