I write to discover what I know.

Flannery O’Connor

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Ernest Hemingway gave us this line in his novel, A Movable Feast, reminding himself that, when stuck at the beginning, this was the place to begin. His counsel seems appropriate to a piece on writing as a practice for growth. However, the “All” in “all you have to do…” can seem like a thousand-mile journey.

Even for those not dependent on writing to put bread on their table, translating an array of words into one true sentence may seem insurmountable. It might even seem pointless to bother with the effort.

Perhaps that’s the point. Words have power: to create and to destroy; to hurt and to heal; to elevate and to lay low. If words are the ammunition, then writing is the gun. What are we aiming for when we put pen to paper? Do we need to aim for anything in particular?

Maybe “aiming” is the wrong word, and seeing our words, even those in a true sentence, as an offensive tool is the wrong place to begin. Here, “writing as a practice” emerges as a more appropriate model for how we leverage the act of writing in our own growth and development. In a world obsessed with making its point, maybe there’s a better point to be made to ourselves in how we use writing to become our very best.

Let’s start our journey by moving words from our arsenal to our creative field. Words are seeds and our world is a big field. What might grow when we plant them? Ideas. Change. Movement. When they begin to grow, words can bring many things to life. Writing is the act of planting those seeds in patterned ways: sentences and structure that bring order and meaning to our thoughts through the words we choose to convey them.

The aim of writing is to direct our thinking in a particular direction, to touch ourselves and others. Our best writing touches us first. From there, it must be made to land wherever else it needs to. Change and possibility hide in these ordered words. Writing makes words real. It gives them a permanence. To write something down is to immortalize it, giving it visible form, and beginning its manifestation in the world. The first step of a vision realized are the words we choose to convey it.

Writing changes people. The act of writing changes the writer and reading the writing of another changes the reader. The words force a decision: yes or no. I agree or I disagree. Every assent takes us further into the writer’s mind and heart…or further from it. Every word written takes the writer closer to some truth…or further from it. To read something is to create extended exposure to the ideas, joys, frustrations, observations, and journeys, of another. To spend time writing is to create extended exposure to the process of thinking, structuring, refining, failing, and concluding, that accompanies the experience. There is no embarking on such a journey without something changing within us along the way.

Writing captures a moment. An image. A thought. A memory. An insight. Writing is history and prophecy. It allows us to see where we’ve been and imagine where we might go. It allows others to see as well. Writing is a glimpse into what we’re thinking, feeling, seeing, and experiencing, right now. It is a season. Some seasons are timeless and some fall quickly out of fashion. 

Writing allows us to give form to complexity. Layer upon layer, words build to ideas, then to pathways, and finally to action. Writing allows us to play it out, revise it, learn from it, and redirect it, all before doing it. Writing helps us build castles in the air and tear them down, lest they fall dangerously. Within our words, we can argue with ourselves, with others, or with reality – seeking truth through syllables and sentences. Writing forces us to take a position. The formation of letters is not fuzzy. In the right order, they mean something.

Writing transports us. Words can be beautiful and uplifting, helping us soar beyond earthbound reality. They can take us somewhere else, tasting, touching, and experiencing an otherness while safely testing the terra firma across the landscapes of our mind. Writing allows others to come with us, to see what we see, and experience it in the context of our seeing.

Writing pushes us, forcing us to think clearly. This is especially true if we’re writing for the eyes of others. Words demand order and intention if they are to become coherent and meaningful as expressions of thought. Writing creates cosmos from chaos. It chases away incoherence as it illuminates. Writing reveals the rambling mind, forces us to confront it, and presents the reins to harness the scattered or the half-formed.

Writing exposes us. Whenever we put something we’ve written in front of others, it says something about us and something to them. There is always a point, even if there is no point, as the writer’s words are received by the reader wherever he or she is, regardless of where the writer is. Sharing our writing puts us at risk: risk of confusion, of ridicule, of disagreement, and of rejection. Our writing might alienate those we don’t want alienated, reveal something we didn’t intend to reveal, or convey something we didn’t intend to convey. It might also convey exactly what we intended and create unintended consequences. Though writing can expose us to risk, it also exposes us to reward. Our words might attract others, inspire them, encourage them, or soothe them. Putting our writing out there may bring praise, or scorn; it can unite or divide.

Writing allows us to safely voice confusion, frustration, and anger. When chaos consumes, writing gives it room to run, and the chance to release the pressure of potentially destructive energies into words that need not gather coherently in the wrong place. Releasing them onto the paper or the screen, drains their energy, and possibly their power to hold us fearfully or move us destructively. Their toxicity drained privately, cooler words are allowed to take their place publicly.

Writing is communication. Whether art, business, leadership, or reflection, our words are a creative conveyance of thought, intention, and direction. Writing reflects how we think, tells others where we’re going, and invites them to come along, occasionally entertaining them along the way. It is the pragmatic and the esoteric. Upon the blank page we can be all things or nothing at all, master and slave, teacher and student, artist and assistant, philosopher and laborer, leader and follower, expert and neophyte. It allows us to live within our own bubble or to bring others in with us, inviting them to react. It is part of the great human dance we call communication.

Writing is a practice. Like all we possess, it fades away when left unused. It can be profound or mundane, elevated or base, but it cannot sit statically and remain fruitful. To write is to lean dynamically into the known and unknown, wrestle with it, and engage it. It is a skill to be developed, stewarded, and used.

Writing is yours. Good or bad, elegant or elementary, it belongs to you along with all those thoughts and words you’ve collected over a lifetime. Each word perfectly happy to sit, waiting patiently, for you to call upon it in that next sentence, paragraph, post, letter, or chapter. All of them desiring expression from the fount of your being, whether on paper or in the digital universe. Writing is intelligence manifested, reason directed, and creativity brought to life, in an endless combination of letters and sentences telling the world, and yourself, that you are here, your voice engaged, and your heart ready to share. Your words cry, “I’m ready to say something, no matter the consequences.”

Writing is a gift. Writing is half of that great gift we call literacy, and it should be cherished, even in its imperfections. It is part of our cultural inheritance and given to us through our education. It is also a gift we give, to ourselves and to others, in a great expression of sharing. A gift manifested in the thinking it demands, the self-reflection it offers, and the opportunity it provides others to experience the same.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Just write it to yourself first.

The points we want to make, ideas we want to convey, dreams we want to share, or even the rants we feel compelled to immortalize, all land first within ourselves. They are often just whisps of a notion in our head, but the ink or LED image of those letters transforms that notion into something else.

Even writing other people’s words and ideas sets off a chain reaction in our hearts, our minds, and our souls. Writing is the process of making real all that hides in the light and the dark of our conscious or subconscious mind. Sometimes it needs to be shared and sometimes it needs to be purged. The physical act of writing brings it all into the visible with form and structure, ready to be put to use, or put away.

Ultimately, writing reveals, then changes us. And that’s why it’s so necessary. Once we write the idea, the dream, or the observation, we’ve acknowledged it, and planted it deeply. The physical act of writing it, manifests reality. That one true sentence points to the next truth and, in so doing, begins the process of realizing it. This is the hidden power of writing. We often think of writing for the point to be made to the world, but the best writing starts with those words we need to share with ourselves.