MUSE
August's column for The Greater Canton Writers’ Guild
Newsletter
Writers write for many reasons, all of them valid. And those writings – what we produce – and
the words we use to express our thoughts and ideas -are a measure of
ourselves. They tell the world who we
are and what lies within our minds and hearts.
Many
times the act of writing is therapeutic: it exorcises the demons that plague
us. That’s personal. That’s also between the writer and his therapist. There’s’ something called too much information that your readers
don’t need to know.
When we write for publication, it is necessary to connect
with your readers and in order to do that, we need to know who our targeted
audience is. Shared experiences and common interests are a way to do this. When you write about nature, you would want to
share it with someone who loves the outdoors – and you would submit it to a
nature magazine.
A few years ago I attended a poetry writing workshop taught
by Jeff Gundy. One of the women in the class asked him if she was writing for
herself, why would she need to observe form, punctuation and the like since it
would seem that “anything goes”. His
response was perfect. He said that “the
minute you give your work to someone to look at, asking for their time and
opinion, you are immediately then bound by the rules of grammar and
composition.” Meaning that if you write
for yourself (or therapy), chances are you should probably keep it to yourself.
But go ahead and rant on paper. Then burn it – or in my case, hit delete.
Writers face rejection enough without submitting their work
to the wrong audience. Knowing our audience when we submit (and I’m not talking
about writing for the judges) makes a big difference in whether our writing is
accepted or rejected.
