restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

                

Writing Goals for 2020

 David Alan Black 

What are your writing goals for 2020? How are you planning to find balance between your writing and your life? What things can you reasonably expect to accomplish next year? It's time, folks, to ply our craft of writing again, this time in a new year. The only way we're going to become writers is by writing. In other words, you can't publish it if you don't write it.

My writing goals for 2020 are slowly taking shape. What do I need to write? What do I want to write? How can I become a better writer in 2020? Those are tough questions, ladies and gentlemen. For me, the bottom line is: What will be the most fulfilling use of my creativity as a writer in 2020? I sincerely believe that everything we want to accomplish in our writing careers is possible, but we have to want to succeed. The recipe for success is simply finding the people who want to read what you write. Nobody owes us their attention. Edifying, encouraging, and challenging your readers makes you a good writer (1 Cor. 14:3).

Someone once called my writing style "minimalistic." That's pretty accurate, I suppose. I hate wasting my readers' time. They just want you to get to the point. In fact, there's nothing I enjoy more than reading a book that's simple without being simplistic. Ditto for sermons. 30 minutes is ample time to to get your point across -- if you're succinct. As a classroom teacher, nothing has done me more good than putting my views "out in the open" as it were. When you publish a defense of Matthean priority or the Pauline authorship of Hebrews, you feel a bit vulnerable. Yet some of the most frequent emails I get today are from people wanting to thank me for challenging them to think outside of the box. In the end, people don't buy a book. They buy the author. I will read anything Packer has written. Or Stott. Or Ellul. Or Swindoll. Or Carson. You're probably the same way.

Today after church I plan on taking a very long walk. Ideas often come to our minds when they're empty. That's why it's important to schedule time just to be. My writing fuels my purpose in life but it doesn't define my existence. The moment I lose my love for writing is the moment I will stop. The best writers I know are real people. They're funny, and they never take themselves too seriously. They have learned the secret of this.

December 8, 2019

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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