Write about what you know

Every creative writing class teaches students to write about what they know and the obvious reason for this lesson is that it's easiest to find your voice, to sound authentic when finding inspiration from something specifically personal.

However, that advice runs contrary to similar advice given to journalists which is know your audience and write each story with them in mind. 

Both bits of advice are solid instructions but can come into conflict with one another, especially as a journalist is trying to be creative and opinionated and not necessarily reporting on events of the day. Balancing both a need to appeal to an audience and a desire to write what is sometimes deeply personal is one of the characteristics of successful independent writers.

It's a balance I tried to achieve when blogging more consistently years ago and one I'm trying to strike right now.

Yet two other key elements to good writing are reading and volume. Great writers are usually voracious readers as well as compulsive writers meaning that they write a lot, even if not all of it is published. Practice makes perfect and I know that the more I write, the more my writing improves. 

I cranked out my best writing when I was writing three or four times a day and reading dozens of other writers in blog posts, articles, reports, books, etc. And during that time I was always aware of my audience while keeping the writing grounded in what I knew.

That's what I'm working to recapture. It's not easy but I'm doing it. Not everything I write over the next few weeks will be something I look back at fondly but it's the discipline I'm trying to reclaim.