I am the Audience

Things I’ve learned from blogging 500 days in a row . . .

Writing is fundamentally about finding the right language—for me. The primary audience is always the writer because words are merely the tools to better understand and name one’s reality. That is to say, the right words succeed if they are the right words for him or her who writes them and not if they’re the right words for a secondary audience that might give a five-star review.

Lacan said that a letter always reaches it’s destination because the intended destination from the beginning was the sender. Even if it gets lost in the mail, it arrived. (That sounds weird!)

All writing is a type of journaling, and that’s why it’s so important. Your voice must be cultivated over time to best articulate the world you experience and the world you dream about. Not because someone needs to hear it but because you need to say it.

It will only be as meaningful to others as it is meaningful to you. And it will only be meaningful to you if you fumble to get it out, chew on it, rework it, try it again, rearrange it, throw it in the trash, pick it back up, wrangle it back to the ground, and eventually own it.

We need your writing.
We need your voice.
But you need it first.