FaithWriters Magazine is back – with some wonderful fiction, articles, and poems by FaithWriters members. Check out the January 2013 issue here!
I learned a lot about writing over the past year. But at the moment, it isn’t doing me a bit of good.
Some of you may know that I dedicated 2012 to learning more about the craft of writing. To that end, I took at least a dozen online classes, attended a writing conference, and read at least half a dozen writing craft books. I’ve also read writing craft blogs, two monthly writing magazines, a quarterly writing magazine, and likely other things I’m not recalling.
I know more about character arc, setting, ways to make a character’s emotional expressions more powerful, plotting, and rhetorical devices than I did at the end of 2011. A LOT more. And all this knowledge could help me greatly in making my current (or future) work in process a better, more compelling read.
But just because I have the knowledge doesn’t mean I’ll actually use it.
I remember vividly learning at least some of these things before. But did I apply them to my writing? Not necessarily. Having the knowledge is not enough – I must actually apply it to what I am working on.
This isn’t only true in writing. James speaks of people who do the very same thing with God’s Word.
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. James 1:23-25 NIV
Do you not only read your Bible, but do what it says? Do you listen to, AND put into practice, the message your pastor preaches? Do you listen for God, then act on what you hear? If not, you may not be any better off than if you hadn’t heard at all.
I’m planning to spend 2013 applying the new skills I picked up in 2012 to my writing. I will purposefully use what I have learned to improve my story.
I’ll do the same with what I read in my Bible, learn in Sunday School, and hear in our pastor’s messages. For acting on those truths will do more than bring me closer to a publishing contract: it will draw me closer to my Savior.
Are you applying the lessons you learned in 2012 to your life in 2013? Share an example.
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2 Comments until now.
Aristotle said to learn is to do. What you have done, you have learned.
Still, acquired knowledge – what has been learned, by doing – is not always evidently expressed, when applied. A writer who has immersed himself in the knowledge of the techniques of writing, for instance, most certainly shall approach his writing decidedly differently than having not obtained that knowledge. Yet, in the writing, that composite of acquired information may not show any singular evidence, per se.
What we have learned alters our perceptions and approaches to any given task, even though there be no direct evidence, no direct link, to demonstrate it. Once learned, we are never the same again, nor do we return to our former selves, future practice notwithstanding.
Thank you, Joanne, for sharing why the rubber needs the road.
What truly is knowledge; is it the accumulation of information, the application of it, or both? And whence cometh that knowledge, from reading many books, ruminating over past experiences, or both?
I’ve made a funny observation lately; the more formally I learn, the more discontented I get with so called learning. But do not misunderstand me. It seems that knowledge is essential only to the current demand. To still my rumbling tummy, I turn to someone less knowledgeable than I. The knowledge of the local farmer, the produce of whose art I use to quench my hunger, is at that moment more excellent than my prowess in alchemy. But when I think of knowledge, I always seem to view mine as greater (better/higher) than his. On that premise, I look down on him.
Then I thought within myself, “If I’d become anything I wanted to, what would that be, and what is keeping me from it?” If knowledge were the issue, then the fellow who has attained that which I wish for is better than I, and the one who hasn’t reached my level has nothing to offer. Essentially then, knowledge is not knowledge unless it can be weighed on a scale that I have created. But then, how do others go about their lives so smoothly without it?
We could debate on such a point, or we could realize how much we need each other, and hence strive to use the different graces (and levels of it) granted to each of us, to be of service to each other. In the absence of such perspective, we become the folks that Paul the apostle spoke about, who “…commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” –II Cor 10:12