Care

Care. Care what you write about. I care about writing this, and I won’t apologize to everyone who doesn’t care I wrote it. Writing about what you care about seems so simple. Why else write? (Unless you’re getting paid and you need the money.) But also be careful.

It is April 2025. I do not know any bored people. People’s passions are flaring. Good. Their passions are flaring because the world is so weird, which is bad, but imagine how much worse it would be if things were this weird and no one noticed. Friends who I know who are secretly great writers have hidden their writing talents because they have been working on other things. Now, they’re producing pieces that should be read. Thanks to social media, their words are available now, not having to wait for gatekeepers and flow time.

It should be obvious that I write regardless of world events. Since 2002, I’ve been actively writing and finding outlets for my words via books, blogs, posts, and extending the work to videos and podcasts. 

Originally, I worried about who and how many read what I wrote. It took years for me to accept the disconnect between who I expected to read my work and who was actually reading it. I can’t recall the source, but someone pointed out that family and friends are not a writer’s core audience. It is nice to give family and friends credit for being important, as they are, but family and friends frequently already know your story, especially if you write non-fiction. There are billions more people to connect with.

I bicycled across America. I walked across Scotland. My friends heard updates throughout the trips with emails instead of postcards. Why buy the book? Just Keep Pedaling sold best to RV owners who wanted to vicariously experience someone else’s trip. Maybe they enjoyed the contrast, or a view at 10 miles an hour, or a visit to a place they might want to visit. Walking Thinking Drinking Across Scotland had surprising sales in France and Italy even though the book wasn’t translated into French or Italian. I guessed they liked a chance to laugh at a Yankee trying to travel through Scotland. How will the accents and cultures clash? Hey, in both cases, folks bought the books. (But never enough, eh?)

As one recent reader mentioned, my blog from my book about personal finance, Dream. Invest. Live., helped make them a multi-millionaire. Note the partial and not total credit. Another reader on a different topic said something like, “I needed to read those words, written that way, at this time, in your style.” They didn’t tell me which ones or the topic, but that’s the most inspirational compliment I’ve received. 

The world circa April 2025 is producing stories faster than we can read them. We can hope to understand part of that infinity, but infinity is too large to absorb and control. But within that infinity, there are topics that you know, understand, and can describe better than most. And I contend that’s not just a non-fiction perspective. Who could imagine the mix of emotions sloshing and buffeting us around? Poets and novels, get to it!

Caring is important. The energy of a voice is powerful. But I am also cautioning people to also be full of care, as in careful. Sad to say, self-censorship has always existed. Within societies where there’s freedom of expression, the main reason for care is basic politeness. It is easier to splash words across a page than to do so in person because we are a social species and we care about other people, at least civilized folks do. But recorded words can become evidence, good and bad, and in less-than-free societies the consequences can be more than simple criticisms. 

There’s a lot of ‘us versus them’ going on. Emotions are peaking. So are reactions. Self-censorship is also called editing, which may be necessary to avoid misunderstandings, hurt feelings, or confused authorities. Scary? Could be. Worried? Check history.

I also am fascinated by what people wrote during turmoil. Movies make that easy. Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, Mrs. Miniver were written in early World War II, before the writers and the rest of the crew knew who would win. Mark Twain had open eyes and open writing. Wasn’t it Hemingway who didn’t shy from conflict? The energy didn’t have to be heightened. I suspect it was actually restrained.

And yet, write. You may not know who or where your audience is. Sometimes I suspect that some of my writing will best be appreciated by historians. Lousy for sales, but hopefully, I help. There’s no way to know.

Actually, there is one vital step to knowing. Write. Write what you care about. Maybe your friends and family will read it. Maybe not. But out of over eight billion people, there must be an audience that wants to read your words, written your way, in your style. Write.