who do you write for?

Godfather · Jan 8, 2007

do you write for the reader? for yourself? for who? and why?

i write for myself, first and foremost. but i don't write just for myself. the reader comes second.

the reason is self satisfaction and self gratification i guess. i've got to create, you know, it's who i am. i've grown up being this character of art, an artist. and that's what i've learned, it's what i'll always be. i hope. and you know, i don't get much chance to create in school, and my friends normally aren't too interested in my words or drawings. only momentarily, or if it's about them. so, i write and draw and take pictures, and the idea that nobody has ever written these words, it makes me feel good. and i love reading a good poem that i wrote. also, part of it is documentation. i think it's great to document things that happened in my life, and i do this through pictures and words.

but if i didn't have the good folks here at AW to show my stuff to, well, i don't really know what i'd be doing now. well no, i know i'd be doing the same, but i'd be a lot worse and a lot more immature.

William Haskins · Jan 8, 2007

myself.

Del · Jan 8, 2007

I write for me. I edit for the reader.

giftedrhonda · Jan 8, 2007

I love Delarege's answer. I write for myself, too, but I edit with the reader in mind.

davids · Jan 8, 2007

Beats the hell out of me-write cause it is there-then-well-sometimes I can fix it sometimes I don't wanna-that is poetry-fiction I write for $$$$-oh how heinous-but true! That applies to non-fiction as well

Rivana · Jan 8, 2007

I write cuz I need to write. I write cuz I need to tell a story. I write cuz...well, you get the point. I can't not write. Most of the time I love my own work and have my favorites that I can re-read over and over again. I write poetry because I have things I need to say. I write prose because I have stories I want to tell, to myself as well as to others. I take pictures because I love beautiful things and I sing, because well, frankly I'd die otherwise.
That other people like what I do? It always gets my spirits up for a while. I love appreciation of any and all kind, attention junkie that I am, but first at foremost I do everything because I just have to do it. Though when it comes to poetry I write very much to the reader. I wish to make them feel something, think something. Move them...
*shrug* I know it's a bit naive to think you can change the world with your art, but I'd really really like to.
^o^

Billytwice · Jan 8, 2007

Posterity.

To leave an indelible mark on the world behind, if that doesn't sound too pompous an ambition.
My ultimate aim is to string a few words together that have the power to reverberate up through the centuries.

In reality?
A little ripple will probably do.

Then the trials of living maybe,
Just maybe,
Justified.

Norman D Gutter · Jan 9, 2007

I write the type of poetry I like. But I write it for the reader. I figure, if I like a certain type of poetry, there's got to be a couple of other million people out there who also like that type.

But readers are not interested in my diary entries. So I try to write the kind of poetry I would like to read, but with the reader in mind, with the goal that a reader will read my poems over and over. If they read it once and say "That's nice," and go on to the next poem, then I have failed. But if they think it is so good that they read over and over, then I have succeeded.

NDG

moblues · Jan 12, 2007

While I try to keep my writing accessible to the reader, this is sometimes a selfish pursuit. I don't mean it to be.

I write to get back parts of me that were taken from me. I write to plead for forgiveness. I write to beg for humility. I write for my love of human grace when it's granted.

All things said, I write for you.

Mike

wordsheff · Jan 12, 2007

I like KTC's and Delarege's answer

NeuroFizz · Jan 12, 2007

I write to improve my grasp of all forms of written works. Some pieces are written for specific individuals. I write to leave a piece of me behind for my children, their children and (if the world lasts that long) their children.

wordsheff · Jan 12, 2007

I suppose a part of me hopes a few of my poems will be read in a thousand years. So in that sense, I wrote for people and myself, because who doesn't know the name William Shakespeare 400 years after he died? It's the only form of immortality I know of.

WS

kdnxdr · Jan 12, 2007

I write for the words and the thoughts and to discover qualities of them that I never experienced before.

If God is the Word, and created speaking a word, then the creative word is sacred.

I believe that words either promote life or death and I hope that how I use words contributes to the celebration of life.

who do you write for?

Godfather

back door man

William Haskins

poet

Del

Sky isn't falling, ground is rising

giftedrhonda

Gifted Goofball

davids

Rivana

Walks in the shades.

Billytwice

Norman D Gutter

Engineer Sonneteer

moblues

wordsheff

NeuroFizz

The grad students did it

wordsheff

kdnxdr

One of the most important people in the world