My day was just getting along just fine until I read this observation from Ernest Hemingway, “Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.”

Rats.

This week– for some reason that I’ve since forgotten– I was thinking about a required art class I took in college. I hated that class. It’s not that I hate art; it’s just that I don’t appreciate it nearly enough. I wouldn’t have known my stick figures were substandard unless my kids informed me, but I’m glad they are honest. Anyway, I learned something in that class which I was thinking about earlier this week.

I realized that if one wants to learn to draw, one must first learn to see. My drawings improved once I was able to look– really look– at the lines, the shape, the form of an object. I think what I’m referring to might be called “perspective,” but I didn’t pay attention well enough to say. Having a concrete object in front of me did wonders to improve the dimensionality of my drawings. After time spent in study and observation, drawing became easier, though it will never be natural for me. Despite what Walt Disney believes, imagination can only take you so far. For those of us who lack talent, it’s all just a pile of hard work.

Writing is a lot like drawing, though I do believe that I wholeheartedly prefer one to the other. The ability to write well is tied inextricably to the ability to see well. Writers take the raw material of life and serve it on palatable plates, which makes the grim portions go down easier and the ho-hum pieces more savory. Good writers help us see what we’ve been missing.

I’m not writing about good writers because I imagine myself one, though I hope more time in study, hard work, and a meteor falling on my morbid lot will remedy that one day. Rather, the subject comes to mind because I wonder what makes a writer, a writer. Certainly one’s grammar usage comes into play at least a little. Is one a writer simply because one takes pen to paper or fingers to keyboard? Does one need readers in order to be a writer? Does journaling count? Is the quality of one’s writing tied to the amount of currency one can command for his words? And what about blogging? (Yeah, what about it.)

Blogging is a form of writing whose rules are—precisely because there are none– more difficult to grasp. The question of whether a writer needs readers is akin to the old question, If a tree falls in the middle of a deserted forest, does it make a sound? If a writer writes to no one, does she write? Well, of course, she does. The question is really, Does she make a difference? Maybe and maybe not.

Professional writers aren’t the only ones with readers anymore. Blogging has opened up a whole new venue for those who would have never had the opportunity otherwise. For myself, it has prodded me to see life more clearly and look at it more critically. Because if I am going to write about my life—just like an artist must do– I must look at the lines, the shape, the form of it more closely. This is healthy, so long as one can keep from airbrushing, gross introspection, or any of the other many narcissistic maladies common to man.

All that to say, thank you for dropping in sometimes to look at life along with me. And forgive me for taking so long to say so. Writing about my life is one thing. Living a life worth writing about is a whole other matter. The latter is the better virtue, so I’ll sign off for now.

Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public. ~Winston Churchill