These past few days are the days of late writing sessions it seems. I’ll be knocking out some words after I finish this post.
The developers are almost done. I should have 98% of my macro system set up by end of the week, which is awesome.
A FOLLOW-UP FROM YESTERDAY
I want to repost something I said yesterday and explain a little more.
Yesterday, I said that “the act of writing is about getting in people’s heads and controlling their thoughts.”
Looking at that sentence, I realized, wow, that is pretty strongly-worded. I didn’t have a filter last night.
But it IS true if you think about it.
Through mere words that you type into a word processor in a certain order, you control what readers see, and to a certain extent, how they see it. You can even influence how they feel.
You can think of it as good or bad, but it simply is. Even an email or a blog post that you write has the same power. You can impart good or bad qualities to it, but it’s neutral.
But it’s important to understand that as a writer, the words you use have power. Only when you understand that power can you learn how to truly wield it. In my (and your) cases, we use our powers for good, and responsibly.
When you think about writing as mind control, you make different decisions. Instead of focusing on typos, you instead focus on how to maximize your story’s impact, that the images the reader sees are the right ones, and how your message is being received. You don’t get bogged down by the technical details, which is my aim with my editing project. That’s the point I was trying to make yesterday. A lot of folks can’t see past spelling and grammar errors or plot. The moment you step away from those things (and can do them competently, I might add), you have an almost infinite number of tools at your disposal to improve your writing. You start going deeper into the rabbit hole, and what you see is weird, beautiful, and even crazy at times. That’s the life of a writer.
Have a good night.
