My Writing Manifesto

I write for my own purposes. I do not write to make my religion look good. I do not write to persuade people to one viewpoint or another. I do not write to please my family or my publisher. I do not write to make money, though I will certainly complain about it if I don’t. I do not write to give people a warm feeling when they close the pages of my book, nor to give them a sense of “closure.”

I strive for the following when I write:

1. To express myself as precisely as possible in the moment.

2. To express opposing viewpoints as fairly as I possibly can.

3. To reject the idea that any narrative is simple or that any person can be reduced to a stereotype or to a single aspect.

4. To show all characters as heroes in their own worldview.

5. To be as fair as possible to those with whom I disagree violently.

6. To challenge myself.

7. To use words both deliciously and directly.

8. To have fun.

9. To create characters who haunt me and others who read about them.

10. To make sense of the world, and to make nonsense of the world.

I demand for myself the right to change my purposes of writing at any time and without any warning. I will write and discover my purposes as I do so. I am who I am and my writing will reflect that. I will write the stories that I want to write and will only write a series so long as it serves me as a writer because I still have something to say using that vehicle. I will take editing where and when it enlightens me and makes my own purposes clearer and more piercingly accurate.

I will learn as a writer, throw away old strategies and develop new ones, and be experimenting all the time. I will doodle with my words and throw out doodles when they are not what I wish them to be. I will keep working on projects that are doomed if I choose to, because I choose to. I will believe that an audience will be found for every finished piece of work, even if it is an audience of one. And if I am no longer pleased with writing, I give myself permission to find other ways of expressing myself either publicly or not. I am in charge of my words and ultimately, I will always take the heat for using them as I have, for good or ill.

I will encourage all other writers and creative people to find their own way in the world, whatever that may be, through my internet words, my public persona, and my private encouragement. We are not one, but many, and the more of us there are, the more we matter. I matter. My words matter. My world matters.