My friend Alex was a student on my staff a couple of years ago when he came to me and asked why I, at that time, posted on this site so infrequently.

I was surprised he was aware I even had this blog, much less that he cared how often I wrote. But he challenged me to write more often. He liked reading my stuff.

That conversation sparked a much more consistent writing habit for me. It’s one thing to share your writing publicly. It’s so simple now to publish and post and share on the internet. It’s another thing altogether to write with the expectation that someone actually will read it and care.

Before that conversation with Alex I had been writing without much awareness of an audience. There is great value in writing to better understand what you think, without regard to any audience. But writing with readers in mind will sharpen your thinking and your prose.

I said this last year (which was paraphrased from something I had read online somewhere):

Kind of like how you clean your house so much better when you’re expecting company, writing something with the awareness that others might read it will lead to clearer thinking and better work.

Today happens to be Alex’s birthday. We had lunch together today, and he reminded me again that he’s continuing to read my stuff. And I was reminded how potent an encouraging challenge from a friend can be.

And I’m also reminded that I need to be a more diligent noticer of the art and craft and kindness of others. I need to be like Alex more often (and Tim and Trey and Angie and Emily and other friends who regularly notice my work) and challenge those whose work I admire to offer their best.

Make art, people. Express yourselves. Do your part to make sense of it all and to enjoy the ride we’re all taking together.

Here is just a bit of author John Steinbeck’s advice on writing, taken from a Paris Review interview:

It is usual that the moment you write for publication—I mean one of course—one stiffens in exactly the same way one does when one is being photographed. The simplest way to overcome this is to write it to someone, like me. Write it as a letter aimed at one person. This removes the vague terror of addressing the large and faceless audience and it also, you will find, will give a sense of freedom and a lack of self-consciousness.

            Now let me give you the benefit of my experience in facing 400 pages of blank stock—the appalling stuff that must be filled. I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone’s experience which is probably why it is so freely offered. But the following are some of the things I have had to do to keep from going nuts.

            1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

            2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

            3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

This is good.

Focus on just one page at a time. One line at a time. Just the next word, even.

Don’t try to edit as you go. Just let it flow and see where it goes.

And, instead of imagining some potential vast audience or the possible impact of your work or the rewards that might come from it, focus on just one single reader.

Be the reader, in the way that director Christopher Nolan puts himself in the position of his audience when making films. But reading is a solitary affair, so you need to imagine only that one single reader.

One. Single. Reader.