You write for two people, yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart.
Interpretation
Writing is a dual process where you express yourself while also considering the knowledge and intelligence of your audience.
This quote by Tony Hillerman emphasizes the importance of connecting with both oneself and the audience in the writing process. It suggests that while a writer should bring their own voice and ideas to the page, they must also be mindful of the audience's perspective, intelligence, and education level, which can greatly enhance the effectiveness of their communication.
In practice
In a writing workshop, this quote can be used to encourage participants to think about their audience.
Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know.
For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone. Perhaps if I was depressed and isolated, just communicating with these authors through their sentences helped me.
Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.
So much about big-time college sports is criticized. But the worst scandal is almost never mentioned: the academic fraud wherein the student-athletes, so-called, are admitted without even remotely adequate credentials and then aren't educated so much as they are just kept eligible.
As a woman of colour, as a person who is a minority, I believe its important that other people know about my language and I don't necessarily have to explain. In the same way, when I read 19th-century literature and if I have to understand a Latin phrase or a French phrase, it is incumbent upon me to learn it.
Future generation is the most important thing.
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