With an Appreciative Audience

Most people reading this will already know that writing is a very private, mostly invisible work.

I don’t know how many of you have known what I experienced for the first time this weekend: writing as a performance.

It was an unexpected and nearly giddy delight to have the progress of my work followed so closely. When I trimmed the fat, I was complemented. When I produced a new, resonating argument, I was praised.

All the work I do “in secret” so often, the simple (but usually effective) trading of sentences within a paragraph, that usually means nothing to any but me– this earned me the title of magician.

And isn’t it magic we writers make?

Sometimes clumsy magic (like this attempt at sharing my delight at a process being recognized), but magic still, frequently dazzling to the uninitiated and unjaded who watch us create meaning out of chaos.

However clumsy, it is a gift to be able to say what we mean, and watching others without it makes me more thankful than ever I can so often find the right words at the right time.

This entry was posted in Writing.

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