Day 193 + some

Sorry...I'm a little lazy today, because I'm supposed to be working on other things than updating this blog.  I was just thinking about how all writing is argumentative or persuasive.  However you want to call it.  I've been working on my message/sermon for this upcoming Sunday (yeah, I know...no pressure, right?) and it sort of dawned on me how writing my message is so much like writing and essay which is so much like writing a business email.  They are all so similar.

So how does writing a young adult/children's novel come into the picture?  Creative writing uses the other end of your brain.  I don't just mean other side, I mean other end.  Its a remote part of the mind that is only really active (I believe) when you are a child unless you make an effort to use it.  Its the imaginative part.  You know, when you'd walk into a playground, see the jungle gym, and see a cave?  Or a pirate ship?  Or a bee hive?  Or when you were given a piece of Playdoh, you'd see the horse, not the lump.

As adults, most of us don't use that part of our brains.  Some adults (inventors, artists, writers, and adults who just haven't grown up) use that "end" of our mind but only on occasion.  How often do we unknowingly tap into that creative energy?  We have to make an effort, strain, suffer headaches in order to get the same out-of-the-box thinking that it would've taken us half a second when we were a child.

Still, creative writing is very persuasive.  Any writing is persuasive.  Either you are trying to persuade your readers that the argument you are saying is the logical stance, or you are trying to prove that this product is better than that product, or that God really wants you to do this rather than that.  OR you are trying to prove that this world that you've created really is a viable, livable world and that the characters are worth the attention and the time of your readers.  And maybe you are just trying to prove that the things these characters learn is something worth noticing.  Maybe, just maybe.

I don't think writing, or anything spoken or written or communicated, is worth the effort unless there is a message to it.  From something as simple as "I am cold right now" to as complex as a political argument or graduate thesis.

What does your communication prove?  Is it idle or is it worth using that side of your brain?