(The comments on this post are excellent and profound. They bless me again, years later, and offer a better answer than my own post to the question “Should The Writer Write?”)
When these 31 days of writing have ended I will do a follow-up post about what I’ve learned–and I have been learning. But I want to comment briefly today on the craft of writing, and a wall into which I continually strike. Maybe you’ve been here before, and can give words of advice.
My question is simply, does blogging matter? Does writing matter? With the millions of voices talking in this world, does one more only add clamor? Or does it carry value?
Sometimes I smart at the realization that we are like ants on a hill, all of us deeply intent on our own missions, yet our tasks each bearing striking resemblances to our neighbor’s. When I think this, I’ll think, well, that’s how we’re made, then. I write and you write and she writes just like he builds or she builds or they build and the point is not to be amongst the elite, but to live–and worship, and glorify the Creator through Whom we were made. And this living means creating in some capacity. So there’s no shame, right?
My husband can play a video game and enjoy it deeply, creating a character and writing into the story line as he goes along. Never mind that hundreds of millions of gamers around the world are doing the same, what a preposterous reason that would be to not hone the craft!
It would be every bit as preposterous, of course, as a homemaker taking a long look at the billions of other houses in the world, and deciding her own talents are ill spent. Why organize and decorate and beautify when so many others are doing the same? If she ceases, what joy will be missed, and what gifts will never be shared!
Perhaps our thing is running, or teaching, or farming, or dancing, or quilting, or coding or piddling with hard drives. Doing these things invigorate, and directly or indirectly cause us to come alive. If playing the guitar and making music enables one to feel God’s smile, wouldn’t stopping be a fool’s call?
But writing, like so many of the arts, demands an audience. I think we must be hard-wired that way, coming by the need to share quite honestly. God splays his handiwork across the sky every minute of the day and if we are wise, we take long minutes to soak it in and praise. Beauty is the food of the soul.
So what if one wants to write beauty? Or at the least, weave beautiful words. What if the way seems clogged and the path seem full, and the truth one wishes to say is already being said by a thousand other painters of paragraphs and sewers of sentences? Does it matter? Should she even add her voice?
And what if the writer, like a chef, longs to lay a feast for more than just her family and closest friends, and instead like Crassus would fill with tables the streets of Rome (though her intent, hopefully, would not match his own)? What if the writer wishes a banquet, is there shame in filling the platters and inviting the guests to come?
Is it okay to write for an audience, and to write boldly, and to seek frontiers all her own? Does adding one more voice to the chorus of voices bring life?
I ask because the wall says, “you are silly, don’t try.”
(Day 25 of the Writing Challenge; where I’m “Just Writing” daily for 31 days.)
To me, it matters, as a writer, and as a reader of writers, it means the world to me. I love reading my real life friends’ blogs, my online friends, those who are nobodies, lol, they are someone to me, lol.
I like the fact others read what I write, but I am at a point I’d write even if nobody read what I wrote, and if I only had a reader, I’d still write.
Thanks for writing so beautifully!
Silvia, your comment really made me think through what it means to write for others as a target audience. Because it’s true, like you, I’d write even if no one ever read; I’ve done this my whole life! I can’t think straight if I don’t write. lol So your comment made me think that perhaps what I’m parsing through is HOW I write–there’s the common writing I do daily for myself, and then there is the effort put into actually crafting more serious strands of words. Something in me comes alive when I do the latter, just as something in me finds peace when I do the former. I just have hit up against this ridiculous wall in my head over and over that tells me to hush, and I think it must be time to just topple the wall and move on.
So maybe it isn’t about an audience, per se, but in how one approaches their craft–how serious one takes the profession. Your own blog is a beautiful testament of someone who values words and who puts them forth boldly. In that capacity you have ministered to me.
Oh, I understand now. I have been lately thinking something similar, as in, “should I write what it comes to my head in a conversational manner -with my emoticons, and interjections, to make it homey-, or try to elaborate and bring forth more poetry? Then I stop thinking and write, and my blog ends up reflecting a mix-mash of writings. Lately, it is so much I want to write and say, I cannot write a single word, so I end up uploading pictures and commenting.
But your voice that says hush… could that come from the fact that you have opened up your heart in the blog, and you feel too exposed? Heather and I were talking about the same the other day. One of her posts, that I absolutely -to say love is too mundane-, so I’d say, one of her posts written from the heart, she told me she felt “naked” after posting it, and that she felt doubts of whether to publish it or not.
In the past, whenever I talked about my issues with my lovely oldest daughter, I have felt very guilty. Then I went through a time of not wanting to write about our homeschooling in particular anymore, and finally, I now know when I have enough distance as to talk about my girls and respect them, and not tear them apart with my rambles.
I’d say, keep thinking if that’s the case. You may want to leave the blog from those posts where you come alive, and think about the HOW, and pay careful attention to your words, etc. Or you may still do that open heart sharing of your words, where you are writing because you need to. You may want to think about a book with those writings that come from your writing as a need, and your way to live. (I think I do more reading as a way to live than writing, but I have my moments, like you with your reading etc., -when you said you were up to truly not much of anything but just being there the best you could for your family.- I have felt like that too. Actually, I still feel like that, at least, once a month! tee hee)
You have given me so much to think on! In many ways your words reflect where I’ve passed in my own thought process over the past few weeks, and it is so good to hear someone else say it. You also bring new things to my mind. Thank you, Silvia!
As you say, writers must write. C. S. Lewis speaks of being “with book” as a woman is “with child.” You are clearly a writer in that way, Harmony. As to the need for an audience, well, the blog writer has only a blog counter; she really needs god-like powers to be able to see her audience, spread out as it will be over space and time. Pebbles and ripples are a cliche for a reason. Finally, the writer unfortunately cannot know much about how and when her writing has touched her reader’s heart. Writers must write by faith.
Your blog counter won’t tell you that I’ve read your words to my friends or how much, over the last 25 days, I look forward to your newly sewn (and sometimes embroidered) sentences each morning.
Jana, this: “she needs god-like powers to be able to see her audience, spread out as it will be over space and time” and this: “writers must write by faith.” These are powerful thoughts to me! I’m going to be chewing on them for awhile. You’re so right, and it is such an incredible way to think about it–exactly what I needed to hear.
Thank you, thank you for going out of your way to thoughtfully respond, and with such depth.
And, “with book” as a woman is “with child”–I love this! 🙂
Oh, I wrestle with this same thought. There are so many voices already. So many ladies from the AO forum alone who blog – why would I add my voice. I write because I think. And sometimes those thoughts, until they are birthed into words, are painful to bear alone. So writing is cathartic. I also write because I want to find some way to convey, in words, the beauty, and pain, and joy, and fear, and wonder that fills up the minutes of our days. I also write because I’m seeking connection with other people who see, and know, and understand the hidden wonders; wonders only hidden because so many do not see them even though they reveal themselves to us everyday in a multitude of forms. I feel like the character, Jake Blount, in The Heart is the Lonely Hunter, always looking for someone who “knows.” Yes, he was crazy, but maybe he was crazy because he never found someone who “knew.” I look around me everyday, I am surrounded by people every day who do not see what is right in front of them, have never made honest connections in their lives. And it makes me feel very sad and lonely. Your last post, Sand, articulated something that I already knew and understand, and my first reaction was, “Here is someone who knows!” because you can look at the mundane process of sand making and see the profound relation to the human condition. You are someone who sees and knows. Please, keep writing.
Heather, I felt exactly the same way (“here is someone who knows!”) when I read your line in your Mother Culture post about feeling the dry brittle grass, like the teeth of a comb, beneath your feet.
I really resonated with what you said here about writing to convey beauty, wonder, pain, joy, fear…as well as writing to seek connection with others who know and see life in this way. I think I would add that I long to help those who might not always see the tiny daily miracles, to lessen the gulf between our perceived earths and heavens, so to speak…
Your comment was very encouraging and kind. Thank you for taking the time to write.
And today I applied a generous amount to my family breakfast toast before toasting it!
My fingers have hovered over these keys for ten minutes now–I don’t know how to express the depth of what these comments mean to me. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time and speaking right to my heart, going out of your way to reply, all of you.
And, sweet Harmony, you made Heather and I want to and buy (I am close to hit that check out button) the Sand book. So beautiful as we read his first pages. But I must say what you wrote from the passage you quoted, had first class quality, and not only, it came from the heart.
I am glad Heather wrote what she wrote, because now I only have to say I think that too, -wink-.
And Heather, wow for the comment and the connections. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter does not leave me. I wonder when the book will (maybe never). Harmony, that character that was “crazy”, it is true, maybe he never found anyone who knew.
I don’t know how to express what I feel other than by inserting, say, 1 billion emoticons in a clever combination, but life is worth living because He created us in his Image, and we can see a glimpse of Him when we read, look, and talk with each other. And we can say we know, because He is. And we can love because He first loved us.
And I got to tell you, you, introvert girls, can write. It will be a shame if you kept this to yourselves. We need your words so much, all of them, the beautiful, the joyous, the painful. Please, never doubt about filling your humble space in the Internet, we readers will always prepare for you a throne, a bed like Alcinous told his servants to prepare for Odysseus after he wrecked in his land.
Silvia, “1 billion emoticons in a clever combination, ” totally made me giggle!
I picked up “Sand” on a whim a the library and am VERY slowly inching my way through it. It’s not a subject I come to naturally, so it’s taking me a long time to really think through all his geological lingo. I’m mesmerized!
Thank you for the words about writing.
Sorry! I got swamped. Short answer to this post is, yes. Now for the long answer. Like you I have struggled with this for a long time. A couple things helped me. I read Walk on Water by Madeleine L’ Engle. After that I remembered a conversation that Much Afraid has with the Shepherd as they walk over a valley covered in flowers, flowers which bend under their feet, in a place no one ever sees. The truth is we are made to give glory to Him and we do so by being fully alive in Him. He has made you to love creating. Do it for His glory, filled with His love, alive for His purposes. Your audience is made up of people who He sent His Son to die for. You will never know the lives you’ve touched, it is a good thing that you don’t. Keep writing. Be true. Your words help share a balm that is desperately needed.
Oh. Heather? Silvia? That goes for you two too. Really.
Thanks, Katie.
You always stir us to that which is good and godly.
just peeping in to let you all to know that i’ve eavesdropped and find courage in all these word blurbs.
it was fun to listen over your shoulder, harmony… even if the conversation was months ago. 🙂