Change The World With Words

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life… Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.” – Viktor Frankl

Today’s post is inspired by Christina Katz (author of Writer Mama and Get Known Before The Book Deal) and her Prosperous Writer ezine (highly recommended: if you don’t already subscribe to it you can check out her blog and sign up here). Recently she wrote about vision, and how important it is for writers to have a clear vision of what they want to achieve, what they are offering their readers, and why it’s valuable to them.

It’s vitally important to have a strong vision regarding your writing goals, your business and your life, but it’s also important to have a strong vision of exactly what it is you want to communicate and how. If you want to produce writing that changes people’s lives, you need to have a clear vision of how you will do this.

It’s easy to copy other people, and with the amount of information out there in cyberspace right now, it’s safe to say there is very little that you can write about that has never been covered before, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be original, and visionary, in the way you present your ideas.

Visionaries may or may not have a unique view of the world, but what they do have (and what they strive to find) is a unique and powerful way of communicating their ideas, a visionary way of calling people to action, a way of not only grabbing attention, and putting their message across, but also empowering people to act on it.

In one of my favourite books about writing, Writing to Change the World, author Mary Pipher writes about ‘what you alone can say’. It may seem arrogant, or even ridiculous to claim that your writing can be completely original and unique, and maybe it can’t, but you are the only person who has lived your life, had your exact experiences, dealt with your exact problems and found your exact solutions. As Mary puts it:

“You have something to say that no one else can say. Your history, your unique sensibilities, your sense of place and your language bestow upon you a singular authority.”

Writers with vision use their experiences to frame an old issue in a new way, or to present well-known facts in a context that gives them meaning, or impact. They use a conversation they had, or an event they witnessed, to demonstrate what it is they want to communicate.

I recently picked up the book, What’s Age Got to Do with It?: Living Your Healthiest and Happiest Life by Robin McGraw, wife of the ubiquitous Dr Phil. Now, as a hard-working, dedicated, non-celebrity writer, there’s only one aspect of the publishing industry that riles me more than celebrities who get a book published purely because of who they are, and that’s people who get a book published because of who they are married to. I might have put the book down straight away but in the opening chapter this sentence caught my attention:

“… thanks to my husband’s world wide television show… I have the privilege of being able to talk to women all over the world about the issues I feel passionate about.”

There’s your vision. There’s your unique perception of the world and the issues you’re writing about. No one else has talked to the exact same set of women as this author has. No one else has had the same conversations, feedback and experiences. This one sentence encouraged me to continue reading, and, unlike many books by celebrity ‘authors’, this offering was not one hugely disappointing, ghost written mess (OK, there are some wonderful celebrity authors – they are invariably the ones who have used their talents and opportunities to create an amazing life and embrace a huge range of experiences, and then brought this to their writing).

Before you start your next piece of writing, think about what you alone can say, just because of who you are, how you think and what you’ve done. You may still end up writing on a topic that many others write about every day, but somehow, somewhere within that piece, will be your own unique take on the issue. Your own vision. Maybe you don’t even want to be a visionary, but I would argue you don’t really have a choice. Whether you choose to actively pursue it or not, you already are.

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