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Why Writing for Your Readers is a Bad Idea

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John Steinbeck on Writing...
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In online publishing there is an oft repeated mantra about writing for your readers. While it is true that you should write for your readers rather than search engines, there is a gaping hole in the advice.  When you face the blank page to tell your story, the last thing you need is an audience, even when the audience is only in your head.

Even the most experienced writer often faces the nasty inner critic, who shows up to heckle and deter you from your writing process. If you allow readers into the room you can guarantee that at least one of them will be a critic. In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft , author Stephen King advises that you tell the story to yourself first. It is advice that helped me get my first novel onto paper. I had to shut the door and lock out the readers, and the critics in order to first tell the story.

Writing is one of the few tasks in which focusing on the end result can hinder rather than help. You cannot sit down to write a New York Times bestseller or a viral blog post. Initially it is you and the story, whatever that story may be. When you have told the story then you allow the readers to help you refine and polish it.

Writing without an audience can yield surprising results. You may discover stories or storytelling elements that never would have blossomed without creative freedom.

Whether or not you are a writer, we all have to write – reports, presentations, correspondence  – and we have all faced the critic that makes us anxious about the end result. How would you apply King’s advice in your writing? Would it ease the task of writing if you did it without thought about the end result?

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Exploring the Heart of Writing

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happy valentines day - pink gerbera with a hea...
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Last week, I read a post by Joanna Paterson at MidLife Journal on Facebook in which she distinguished writing with a capital “W “from writing. The phrase resonated with me and I found myself thinking of it, turning it over, and journaling about it.

Joanna wrote:

“…writing doesn’t need to start with a capital W. There’s a role and a place for that kind of writing, of course there is, and I know many of us dream of getting our work ‘out there’, published, and read.

But there’s a whole lot of other writing that isn’t ever going to end up on someone’s bookshelf.” (Writing and Pathways of the Heart)

We all have our capital W writing – business communications, proposals, presentations, white papers, emails and more. It is the writing that is defined by the intended reader. We craft it with carefully chosen words and phrases with the knowledge that it will be read and in essence will be a reflection of our knowledge and talent.

While the capital W writing certainly has its place the professionalism of it can actually get in the way of the words.

Small w writing for me most often happens with a pen. It is “soul writing,” that comes from a place deep within where raw honesty supersedes style and content. My pen functions as a pipeline to my inner being where thoughts, ideas and feelings drain freely onto the page. In this haven of uncensored thought, the inner critic does not exist. There are no rules and thoughts are allowed to shove their way in uninvited even if the result is a page of seemingly fragmented nonsense.

If you have ever written a letter with no intention of sending it, or poured your heart out in a journal then you know the intensity and satisfaction of small w writing.

Some small w writing should remain private, a safe haven where you can work through the inner complexities without over analyzing the content of your message. Yet, I can’t help but wonder how much better we would communicate if we allowed at least a little of this into our public writing. Would we see posts and articles that were passionate and pure? Would we forgive less polished writing for writing that was heart felt and intense? Would we move past convention as we focus on communication?

I am convinced that writing from the soul always has a place whether is it done with a capital W or small w. How about you?

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Community, Inspiration and The Muse

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A self-made dock of a summer cottage at a lake...
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Today is the first official day of summer, an appropriate day to trade hard cover tomes of business and industry for deliciously just for fun paperbacks.  This post is lovingly for all my writer friends who inspire and challenge me in every season. Grab your flip flops and come build sand castles with me for awhile.

Writers block had spread like some weird epidemic of creative flu. Suddenly pens were silenced and blogs languished untouched for days and weeks at a time. Gripped in the throes of my own angst I told myself we had matured, had outgrown the incessant need to publish and be read but deep down I wondered if I had infected the parasite into the space I had inhabited. The community that had fed my creative soul had vanished around me.

My writing life was as barren as the stark naked trees with icicles dripping from their limbs. My body felt heavy with ideas but I was unable to do more than store them away for future use. It was a long and desolate winter with an occasional breakthrough of creativity like the sun which hid for months and then shone brilliantly high in the sky reminding you that it was there behind the thick blanket of clouds, before it disappeared again.

And then as magically as the virus had struck there was a fresh bloom of posts dripping with intensity and raw emotions.  The virus had stripped away the self doubt and left the bare and naked souls of the writer. Pens were no longer stilled and blogs were humming with the low thrum of activity like tourists descending upon a beach town for the season. The townies quietly blended into the background while the tourists explored with wide eyed curiosity. The community was abuzz with their chatter and questions about the local culture.  The locals pretended not to care but our hopes were renewed. Could we recreate the magic of that first summer, would word spread beyond the borders of our small town? When the summer sun set would the tourists return to the fast paced motion of their lives and tuck away the visit to the small blogging village as a quaint little side trip?

Fueled by the visitors and the locals emerging from self-hibernation I allowed myself once again to be swept away on the waves of their creativity. I drank it in like one who had wandered in the desert unable to command the rocks to yield a droplet of life giving water.  I drank until bloated fearful of letting a single drop escape me, inhaling and tasting the sweet nectar that suddenly was in abundance everywhere. But I did not return to my own shop, eating in secret fearful of being discovered and called out for my gluttony of the precious morsels that were plentiful in the space I had come to love. Tucked away in my corner I filled my baskets with the manna of inspiration, piling the storehouses for the inevitable winter.

When the doors of neighboring shops closed for the night I sat on their doorsteps inhaling the aroma of the day and the soft sounds of gentle laugher mixed with the gentle waves floating upward on the iridescent night sky. I had been here before and knew how quickly the lusty headiness of muse could evaporate. If held too tightly I would crush her fragile beauty so I cupped her gently accepting that she could and would fly off again when she chose. Muse is fragile but surprisingly strong in her will to come and go as it pleases. Even now as I try to distill her beauty into words I know that it may elude me causing my words to spin dizzily like the ranting of a woman gone mad. So I simply sit quietly enjoying the beauty of muse and her ability to come to each of us in her form and on her own terms. Together we, this community of writers who dare to hit the publish button, reflect a tapestry of shapes, sounds and colors more beautiful than any that would have been created by just one. I lean back against the sand thankful for this moment for I know that muse is fickle and fleeting and may soon simply dip beneath the moonlit sky once again out of my reach.

Before you leave the village be sure to check out a few neighboring shops:

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In Celebration of Reading and Writing

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Written by Karen D. Swim

When I was tagged by The Villager for a meme, 25 Writers Shaping My World, I was more than willing to participate. This was a list I could actually complete with ease! This particular meme also happens to occur in a month where reading and writing are being celebrated across the globe.

Today is the National Education Association’s Annual Read Across America Day. The program is focused on motivating children to read. Lillie Ammann tipped me off to Words Matter Week (March 2-6).  Visit her blog to find out how you can get involved.  Joyful Jubilant Learning is hosting A Love Affair with Books , described as  an “annual love-fest with reading.” On the 21st we celebrate World Poetry Day. All of this and St. Patrick’s Day too.  What a month!

Now for my list of 25 writers shaping my world (in no particular order).  My list includes writers who inspired, challenged, educated or motivated me in the past or present. The rules encourage me to tag others but when have you ever known me to color inside the lines?  If you would like to offer your own list, consider yourself tagged.

  1. William Shakespeare
  2. James Baldwin
  3. Maya Angelou
  4. The Bible
  5. Ernest Hemingway
  6. Jack Kerouac
  7. Albert Camus
  8. Valerie Wilson Wesley
  9. Soren Kierkegaard
  10. Stephen King
  11. Richard Wright
  12. Wally Lamb
  13. Langston Hughes
  14. Jennifer Weiner
  15. Janet Evanovich
  16. Natalie Goldberg
  17. Alice Walker
  18. Nikki Giovanni
  19. Frank Peretti
  20. Sojourner Truth
  21. Stormie Omartian
  22. J.D. Salinger
  23. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  24. The Grey’s Anatomy Writing Team
  25. Og Mandino

If you’re interested in any of my picks, you can browse through the entire list here.

How has technology influenced your reading habits? Share your thoughts on reading and writing in the comments.

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