Adonis Diaries

Beyond why you write:  Is it to whom you write? (May 12, 2009)

            Publishing your work is the only way to learn writing: you learn to change your style, broaden your fields of interests, get atuned to human conditions, and mend to your target audience everytime you approach a topic.  Just acquiring this tendency that there are specific target audiences for particular themes is a huge step forward to leaning to write.  Then, you change your style to grab attention and individuality.  You had something to say before you started publishing and now your audiences have something to read and you have to respect their choices. 

Art for art is out of the window and you are immersed in social communication.  That is essentially how bloggers are changing and changing the meaning of communication among people.  You learn to expect curses and unintelligible comments but you learn that if you consider these curses as emanating from anxious readers then you learn to offer them ample replies; your targeted replies are no longer a form of respect for those who took time to scribble a few detached words but because you are responsible for the communication to reach a meaningful level.

            Readers are of the same category as those who starts writing for themselves: They are on an urgent introspective course to answering “Who I am”, “why I am the way I am”, “what for”, “why should I care”, “who cares for me?”.  They are all legitimate queries for intelligent and sensitive people who appreciate life and the limited time reserved to resolving existential problems.  We all want to be of some assistance and participate in helping our neighbor in the best of our capabilities and professional knowledge but we known that we are limited, incomplete, and too worried to be the quiet provider, steping forward with a smile and assurance.

            There are still people and even writers who think that only ads professional writers are interested to studying their target audience because the purpose is to selling a product or a service. Maybe the fresh writer in his first published book was confused as to his target audience (it must be appreciated either by the whole world or restricted to just acquaintances and close relative to prove that he did it) but success leads to investing more time on target audiences than focusing on manuscripts; denial to the contrary is never credible as long as editors, assiatants, promoters, and translators are lining up to have the book out and selling. 

            There are alarming statistics that are consistent in the last two decades: the age category between 16 and 24 supports wars more than any other categories and it also is the most conservative in suggesting extreme sentences on incomplete information.  This age category is supposed to be the idealist section in any population and yearning for peace, equality, and equity.  This age category is supposed to be the rebel against the parent’s conservative attitude.  If the writer is not targeting that age group then to whom is he chanting his psalms?

The essence of the urge to publish is the same whether you posts on websites or in hard copy.  The end results cannot be compared in the magnitude of financial reward and recognition.  I wish I ever got a dime for every post I published then I would be well off and not struggling to literally survive by borrowing just a little for a box of cigarette or have my car move for the day.  The fundamental differences are: first, posting should have the advantage of unbridled censorship, representing the writer’s sole judjement and common sense, and economical in wording because it is exhorbitantly expensive to printing posts on papers that are more than two pages long for casual reading; and second, a published book generates two extreme attitudes of either hate out of jealousy or high honor as role model; the blogger almost always goes unoticed and most of the time he is chastised for wasting his time without due recognition.

I feel that the worst persecution anyone can submit to is when his written opinions are censured.  I can empathize with the hundreds of authors who preferred to suffer death and be burned alive rather than desist in publishing what they deamed to be right.

Writing without feeling, conviction, and personal reflection after due reseach should be a blemish to any writer.  The intelligent and sensitive reader’s responsibility is to comment harshly and expose rationally how his visceral reaction to the article was. That is the best way to tame “covert apartheid” positions in communication; which is respecting both parties by stating true feelings directly, boldly, and clearly.

When someone comment “Ose, ose” (daring, daring) then I understand that I did my job right.  For me daring is the highiest of compliments and appreciations.  I realized that I crossed the Rubicon River when I published my introspection: I am free to reflect at liberty.  Your comments are the most welcomed.