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What does reading do for you? How does it bring value to your life? These questions have been revolving around my brain as I work on marketing Eclectic. Solitary. Gemini., my writing, and, essentially, myself. What problem does my writing solve? And how does it bring value to readers? Those are tough questions for a creative writer because, while entertainment seems like the obvious answer, how is my entertainment more worthy of attention than someone else’s?  Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash But alas, this article is not meant to solve my problem, it’s supposed to solve your’s; because, that’s what good content writers do. What problem do you have that I can solve? What question do I want to answer for you this week?
We live in a society that’s go-go-go and when you stop to take a break you want to relax, enjoy yourself, unwind. Reading can be a chore. Reading a new writer is riskier than, will, I can’t think of an equivalent risk, but I do know there are some not-so-great writers publishing online these days. I also know it’s frustrating to read something with so much potential only for it to be poorly written, or, worse, unfinished. As a result, when you read you stick to the tried and true, the highly recommended, and the well known. Here’s the problem with that; have you ever watched a movie and thought it was amazing only to find out it has terrible reviews? I have, lot’s of times. While all of this bounced around in my brain, I came up with a theory:
I challenge you to think about how we treat writing, art, dance, and music in our society, schools, and day-to-day lives. Read those 3 things again. Did your heart break a little? Mine did. What does reading do for you? How does it bring value to your life? Reading and writing is one of the most accessible ways to access a culture, especially with the internet. Explore, try new authors, new writers, new genres. Join a group where everyone talks about writing, recommends different kinds of writing - the more diverse the group, the better. You don’t have to love everything you read, you don’t have to understand everything, you don’t have to finish everything. Just give it a chance. Do you want to understand something better? Read about it. Right now I’m learning about Arabic culture, especially Pre-Islam and Jinns. Yes, I’m reading Wiki and Encyclopedia.com and various other sites; but, I’m also reading Tales from the 1001 Nights, listening to Arabic music, learning to belly dance, and looking at their art. By immersing myself in this culture I can write a better sotry and characters. Writing is rife with pieces of the author, so you’ll have a better understanding of them after reading it. You’ll have a better understanding of their culture. This is why even bad writing can be good. Is it bad because you don’t agree with it? Because their writing mechanics are deplorable? Are their views uneducated? Or perhaps lack wisdom? All of this can be applied to any of the other expressions of culture: dance, music, art. Even these are more accessible through the internet from online galleries, how-to videos, and limitless playlists. What does reading/art/music/dance do for you? How does it bring value to your life? This is the wrong question, well, half of it at least. What can you do for writers/musicians/artists/dancers? How does it bring value to your life? I know it’s very Kennedy-esque (ask not what your country can do for you…) but the guy had a point. You are society’s heart, you can decide what you want it’s culture to look like. Explore what’s out there and when you come across something good, share it, talk about it, let others know about it. You’d be surprised by the impact you have. One last metaphor to tie it all up… Society is the canvas, Culture is the color palette, You are the artist. *If you just heard or saw Bob Ross painting birds, you are my people!
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