Why I Write

Sybil Stershic is one of the smartest people I know on the subject of how to treat your employees right, so they will treat your customers or clients right, so your reputation will glow. She’s also a terrific writer.

So, when Sybil wrote about “Why I Write,” and invited me to do the same, I was flattered.

I started writing when I was seven years old. I cut up pieces of paper, folded them in half, got my mom to thread a needle for me, and in crayon, I wrote a mystery involving my favorite cartoon characters.

I still think there’s a mystery in me waiting to get out. But these days, I write mainly to make sense of things, for myself and others.

On my Communicate! blog, and in guest blogs I’ve been honored to write, I explore how to build relationships through words. Nonprofit organizations and small businesses need friends. Writing to entertain, inspire, amuse, inform, provoke, outrage, build trust and spur action is still the best way to win loyal friends, even in an increasingly visual age. (Look how Sybil and I have become friends online!)

“Communicate” means “become one together.” At my best, I write to make sure you and your organization understand things as well as I do…and then some. That’s why I consult to nonprofit organizations as well: through my relationship with them, I help them create human ties with their supporters.

When I write for Welcome to My World, I am musing about the injustice and oppression of the world we live in and thinking how to change at least the nation for the better. That’s something I’ve been doing since graduate school, when I used to joke I was getting a Ph.D. in changing the world. I wrote a dissertation back then that turned into a book, and it’s still in print.

I’m also being struck by thoughts from the Jewish tradition. Some of those relate directly to changing the world. Some of them are about the kind of life we could live if only we didn’t have so many things to change.

And of course, there are the sly little tweets I compose for Twitter. Here’s one, in the form of a haiku:

Writing, old is new.

Twitter teaches brevity

to those who will learn.

Thanks for reading! Next up is Diana Schwenk, who blogs at The Other Bottom Line. Diana is an accomplished fundraiser, and The Other Bottom Line empowers non-profit organizations to ignite the passion and solicit the support of their community.  I hope you enjoy her writing as much as I do.