(Longs Peak taken from Twin Sisters)
I’m taking steps toward writing a book (one of the mountains on my radar) and I’m learning there are so many steps ahead of me in this journey. I have invited a techie person into this process to tie together my webpage with a blog and my purchased domain, all things I never really considered even as recently as February. This is all the kind of stuff that would grind me to a halt because I have zero patience for learning that kind of information. We need people with various talents to accompany us on our trek, don’t we? Thanks for being there Techie!
WHO’S YOUR AUDIENCE?
This was a question I was asked early in my first meeting with “Techie”. She was attempting to gain information about where I was heading and learn how she could come along to help me get to the “Summit”.
Can I get to that answer in a moment?
This post was birthed out of some wrestling with that very question, and although my initial answer has not changed for some very practical reasons… as I’ve considered the question more, my initial answer is not completely accurate… and it never really was to begin with. I was simply going about the process in a way that was not altogether true to who I am.
FURTHER OFF-TRAIL WITH EDWARD ABBEY
I’m going to go even further off the original trail for a moment by mentioning that I recently downloaded a sample of a book called “Desert Solitude” by Edward Abbey. In this book, first published in 1968, Abbey, a seasonal park ranger on the FBI watch list (how cool is that!) writes about his experiences/thoughts while working in the Arches National Monument/ Canyonlands area in 1956 and 1957.
Full disclosure here, I have not gotten very far into the initial chapters, but what struck me (and the reason for this post) was the snarkiness with which he wrote. He appears to be comfortable with the idea he will turn off some readers, and perhaps he’s even trying to weed out the numbers early on so he can focus on speaking to his real audience… perhaps a reader that is simply open (maybe not in agreement…but at least open) to hearing what he has to say. I found this refreshing. In a world where we’ve become so hypersensitive to insuring that people are not offended, I wonder if open communication has shrunk to a term I learned in math years ago… the least common denominator. In our pursuit for including everyone… I wonder if we’ve created a watered-down version of a message that speaks to no one.
This is what struck me in reading Abbey, and it stayed with me as I laid my head down last night and woke this morning. I chewed on it… I wrote about it in my journal… and now, here I am typing away on this keyboard with a bit more enthusiasm than I’ve had the past few days and weeks.
I feel like I’ve given myself permission to speak to a smaller group of people – to be free from the bondage of marketing philosophies that talk about the 10-steps to becoming a successful author (and I’m early in this adventure, but I can tell you that from my experience, there are a hell of a lot more than 10 steps!)
SO… BACK TO THE QUESTION… WHO’S YOUR AUDIENCE?
Initially, my response was: “my audience is change agents”. This is somewhat true, because oftentimes, change agents are the ones doing similar work as I do in my “day job”, but identifying them as my audience is not entirely accurate. See, change agents may have the money to purchase a book I write, but if the truth be told, my audience is really a bit different.
With excitement, with a heart that is stirred with much more passion than I had before exploring down this trail, I can honestly say that my audience is most likely a person who won’t be found searching online or in a bookstore for self-help books… My audience is most likely a person in the throws of an addiction, struggling for the strength to start their Day One, a person in the midst of crisis and in need of very basic help… but certainly not thinking about a book to read.
Oh great, this will be a huge success…writing to an audience of empty seats…
But it is! To be uncompromised in our pursuit…isn’t this where we’ll truly find joy? To be true to ourselves…to how we’re wired…again, to be uncompromised and unapologetic in the Summit we’re climbing, isn’t this where we find freedom? But wait! There’s more…
My audience is the toys on Misfit Island…broken and perhaps perceiving they are unwanted or not useful, with no real place to contribute in their communities. And before I go further, I happily identify with those toys on Misfit Island. I am one of you… sure I may look like I have my proverbial shit together (those closest to me smirk at that thought…) but I can put on a mask with the best of them and look the part, act the part, deliver the lines of the script…but at my core, I’m one of those on Misfit Island waiting for some fat dude in a red suit to come along with a herd of flying reindeer to rescue me.
My audience is the person willing to acknowledge that most of us (I may be conservative in that estimate) have blind spots… those places in our lives where we have shit to work through. Everyone around us sees what we can’t see right next to us. They may not know the root causes, they may not even know what they’re looking at, but they know there is something there, and they can’t quite put a finger on it… and when we fail to acknowledge we have these blind spots, we fail to make the necessary adjustments in our driver’s seat to look in that side-view mirror to see what everyone else around us sees… we fail to acknowledge there are things occupying space just out of our view, just out of our awareness, and if we fail to become aware of their presence, it may cause some problems for us on this mile or on some mile down the road if we’re not careful.
My audience to some degree may be those who left the Church. Perhaps they love the Lord… but they want nothing to do with the Church. I say “to some degree” because sometimes I must “go there…” in my writing. Everything I do is so tied into the One I believe in, but I absolutely want nothing to do with the institution of the Church.
Think about this image for a moment. Theologians may want to poke all kinds of holes in this image, but I like to think that Jesus is out looking for the 1 while the 99 are back in some fenced in field. He’s not there with the 99… he’s out looking for the 1. I’m one of those 1’s…and when He found me, I asked Him if I could stay out here with Him instead of being taken back to the 99. Those 99… they’re one of me, but I just can’t relate to them. I like to think He is happy that I want to be out here looking for the 1’s with Him.
Okay, I just lost the church-people… Let’s keep moving.
FEELING LIBERATED
I’m thankful for the words of Edward Abbey in that book written 50+ years ago. For me, those words reminded me of why I wanted to climb that mountain in the first place. Why do I want to write? To get rich? No, not a passion of mine… To be free from the prison cell of an office… I’d lie if I said that didn’t appeal to me, but it’s not quite a passion. To see others walk out of their personal prison? Oh, Hell yes!
When you’re a Coach, there is great satisfaction in watching your players learn and grow and start believing in themselves. There is incredible satisfaction when you watch your players walk out onto the court versus a top-ranked opponent and believe they belong on the same court as that opponent.
That is why I write!
And this is who my audience is!
Why I needed to add this as a post… not sure, but maybe someone can relate to something in this and apply it to their own quest.
See you at the Summit!