Thoughts

Audiences
I don’t believe in writing for anyone but myself. I don’t imagine my audience, I don’t imagine anyone reading my work, and I don’t write as though I’m writing for anyone in particular. I write what I know, what I’ve experienced, as authentically and truthfully as I can, for no other purpose than to convey a truth.

There is too much emphasis placed on audience centered writing in academic settings. When students try to imagine the audience they are writing for, the writing becomes overworked, oversimplified and its intent is lost. The writing becomes technical, perhaps even formulaic, and inhibits the depth and introspective nature of the work.
If we were all to write without an audience in mind we would be able to find so much more in the writing. If we could immerse ourselves in our writing without giving any thought to the audience, the end result would be so much more authentic than what might have been produced had we specifically written to an imagined audience. My idea of a perfect piece of writing is one that the audience finds for itself. The audience should always choose the writing; never the other way around.
Word Choice vs. Ideas

Which comes first: the word choices or the ideas? It’s similar to the timeless question, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” While many feel that word choice is the instrument through which ideas are expressed and therefore ideas come first, I think it’s the word choice that comes first.

For me the ideas are a result of the perfect word choice. Word choice allows ideas to grow organically –  it gives the ideas the flesh they need to have poignancy and truth. If the right word isn’t there, an unstated idea that the author intends to let up to the reader discover may fall flat.