Sometimes I do wonder who is out there appreciating my best licks – my best posts.
(I hope I have informed and uplifted people at some point.)
The point here is that you don’t get to choose.
You may create something with your attorney sister in mind, but you can’t control it if what you made or said hits a nerve with Brazilian coffee farmers.
You create and share in the best way you know – and let the chips fall where they will.
Some people never sell a painting.
Others end up writing “children’s books.”
And yes, times a thousand, children are more perceptive than we think…
I had never intended the stories to be for children, and it’s a good thing I didn’t. If I had set out to write children’s stories, I would have assumed that children were not capable of appreciating my best licks as a writer. In other words, I would have written down to the audience. What I have learned over the years, performing my stories in front of hundreds of thousands of kids, is that they are much more perceptive than I ever dreamed. Every child might not catch every word or every joke, but even the little ones seem to understand the characters.
-John Erickson, Story Craft (Amazon)
