Dermis Forum The Writer and the Reader

I was thinking about something and am curious how other people feel about this. Do you write with a reader in mind? When I first started writing regularly a few years ago it was only about me trying to get through a certain period in my life and learning about myself, to live with myself, so whether anyone ever read most of it didn't matter.

That has changed somewhat, sometimes. A perfect example is this past weekend I wrote a few pieces, one called "The Idiot" that was just about me trying to understand something about myself and I'm really happy with what came out and what other people think isn't a major factor, but the poem "Like Jesus" is written to communicate to others and reach people on an emotional level and whether people can relate to it is critical to whether I have been successful.

I mean in both cases it's great to get feedback on the writing, in the first case if people relate to it, that's a bonus, in the second case, it's paramount.

Do other people write like this?

I think I write poems to me and I try to write stories to other people.

Long ago, before I thought I could write, I used to sit and tell my best friend stories. After we stopping being friends (she outgrew me before my stories), I told my next best friend stories, that relationship ended around the time I decided I wanted to write, so I write to tell other people stories. However, when I try to go to sleep (or when I'm stuck on a story) I let stories play out in my head.

I was in an advanced program in my school system for "smart" kids. In 7th grade, I started to become really depressed, and my straight-A record began to flag, to the point where I was failing a few classes, simply because I didn't want to do any of the work. Somewhere about halfway through the year, we started having some creative writing assignments in my English class. I was reading a lot of Douglas Adams at that point, and I decided to try my hand at writing satiric pieces. My teacher loved them so much that she began sharing them with other classes. That was how I seriously began considering my writing as being interesting to others.

For a long time, though, I never really had an audience in mind. I liked to play with words, to make them form amusing pictures or flit around like flutterbys. I assumed that other people got the same kind of ecstasy out of it that I did, so I just wrote things that I thought looked good.

I also kept a personal journal (and I still do), in order to try and flesh out all the more complex ideas that would plague my mind and confuse me. Eventually, some of the content of these journals began to impress me, and I began wanting to convey my discoveries, theories, and beliefs to others.

I thought the best way to do this would be to write about observations, real or imagined, that would show, rather than bluntly say, what I thought, sort of in the way that fables and parables do, though perhaps with a little less of a "thou shalt" attitude, and a little more of a "see why?"

I always write for myself first. If I don't like how it sounds or looks, or if I don't agree with what it says, I scrap it. This is why some of what I write is just random wordage, or made simply to amuse or delight. That is, I hope that it delights others, but I wouldn't change it if it didn't, because it delights me. At the same time, though, I ache to make connections and to help people do the same, and this influences both what I talk about and how I talk about it. It's also what drives me to improve myself. I don't care if I impress, but I do care about reaction. If I don't illicit some emotional/mental *click* in someone, then I will often revise, recreate, and redouble my efforts to express what I mean.

This reminds me though...I do sometimes write to clear my mind (for future plot lines)...I need to learn to finish up my thoughts while they are fresh because they are harder finishing later (I got a pile of unfinished stories to show for it). I keep telling myself I need to write a journal but all my journals are too nice to ruin with my penmanship.

Trust me, your penmanship couldn't possibly be worse than mine. A lot of the time, I look back and can't even tell what I've written.

I found two jornals...one with word prompts (no lines) and the other with lines..maybe if I use ideas from one to go with the other one it'll be a hit.

I can't read what I write unless I write real slow. I can't be trusted with inkpens or anything that can't be erased.

I always write for me and then edit for others. It just won't come out if I'm thinking about the audience. Stage fright or something. lol

A side note: My handwriting is autrocious. Truly hideous. I should be a doctor. :-)

interesting question, john. my reasons for laying it down on the page have changed. it was for the audience. telling stories, entertaining. now it is to unburden my self and absorb what i have been carrying around, it is to entertain sure. i write when i have something to say, and yep, then too it is to entertain. i never kept a journal. spoken word is where its at for me. so the audience counts. i learned early on that if i wanted to talk about my s**t then i had to give it to people in ways they would want to hear it.