“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than
to open it and remove all doubt.”
During
my life, I have had to balance between this advice by Mark Twain and that of
musician activist Pete Seeger, “If there’s something wrong, speak up!”
The resulting conflict between these two
pieces of advice led me to conclude, “Writing is a risky business.” Sitting, musing about a situation, you run no
risk.
By speaking up however, you run
the risk of being wrong but you might then be able to weasel your way out of a statement by saying, “Are you sure that’s what I said?”
If you
express yourself, by writing, a critic
can wave your written document in your face and say, “Here are your exact words. What utter nonsense! How can you be so stupid?” There will then be no weaseling out of what
you really said, whether it’s a column such as this one, an editorial, a letter
to the editor, or even a letter to your
grandmother.
When writing, you run many risks. You might be misinterpreted, your facts might
be incorrect, you might have made spelling errors or used lousy grammar or if
handwritten, it might even be illegible. If you are expressing an opinion, it may not be a popular one. There will always be critics.
Another challenge in any writing is referred
to as the ‘hook’. How do you begin a
piece of writing to entice a reader to continued reading beyond the first few
words? Following the ‘hook’, the
contents of what you write must then be interesting enough to sustain the
attention of your prospective audience.
Thus
as you write out your thoughts, be aware of the fact that you are taking
risks. Author Ted Sturgeon once said,
“It doesn’t matter what you write, what you believe will show through.”
With the risks of writing, there can also be
rewards. I expect that much of what I’ve written will
be around much longer than I will.
To
quote author Bud Gardner: “When you
speak, your words echo only across the room and down the hall, but when you
write, your words echo down through the
ages.”
When asked why he wrote, James
Thurber said, “I don’t know what I think until I read what I have to say.”
I find writing relaxing and am constantly amazed
where my ideas come from.
Writing may be
a risky business, but I feel that its benefits far outweigh its risks.
One sage once wrote, “Risks must be taken because
the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”
Written by Headwaters Writers' Guild member Clare McCarthy for the August 11, 2016, edition of The Orangeville Banner newspaper.
