Write To Your Audience

When writing, like in everything else, it helps if you like what you re doing, know what you are writing about, and know the audience that you are reaching. Even if it is not the audience that would be your natural target.

As I was a missionary and now a Pastor of a small church, one would think that my writings would be more biblically orientated and to a religious, if not Christian audience, but the fact of the matter is that my blogs started out originally as nothing more than letters to my mother, while we were overseas. Thus I started to write to mum, about things she either knew of liked; or I thought she would find interesting.

When we returned from overseas and she became extremely hard of hearing and often not using her Hearing Aid because it hurts her ears, I found it much easier to write her little stories of what was going on in our family and with our garden and pets. I also found that these letters got passed around among other family members and friends.

One day I wrote a little story about one of the girls’ dog, some magpies and a brushy fence, but it didn’t seem to stand very well as a story and so I added a little moral to it and everyone loved it and commented on it and from that came the idea to just write little stories from my life or events around me, giving them a little point or comment on the end, and from this growing collection came the idea to put them on a blog site for a wider audience.

Occasionally I will write a Letter to our Main Melbourne Paper. So far I have had two items published in them but also heavily edited, and so I have to decide what type of Items I really want to write: Letters, that are not what I really want to write and heavily edited, just for the chance of getting published in a leading Newspaper, or Blogs which I am happy with, for my Blog site. So just like everyone else I too have to decide what audience I want to aim, for, and whether I really want to write that type of writing.

Enough of me though! What about you? Are you really doing what you want to do or are you still trying to please others? It is your choice, and no one but you, can make the right choice for you. Have you? Will you? What say you?