Writing Is Art

Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night."
Flickr photo credit.

At the very core of its being, writing is art. Even if you are relating information about an event that took place or writing in order to show someone how to do something, your writing is still art.

The further I dive into the field of writing and publishing, the more amazed I am by the fact that people can be evaluated day in and day out based on their art. 

While I may not go so far as to say that all beauty rests in the eye of the beholder, I would say that not everyone will rate the same work of art the same. What may be a 10 out of 10 on one person's scale may only be a 7 or a 6 on someone else's. That may be no fault of the artist/writer or the reader... it may just mean that that piece of art wasn't meant to resonate with everyone that could possibly read it. 

This emphasizes the importance of knowing who your audience is, and writing straight to them. In my opinion, if your target audience uses words that qualify as technical jargon on a regular basis, then those words are acceptable in your piece. The same rule should be applied for colloquialisms, the voice the piece is written in, and other grammatical features that pertain to formality. Again, this all depends on the target audience.

Well hey, writing is art, right? So then, jargon, colloquialisms, and informality should be accepted simply on the grounds of creativity and originality in creating that piece of art, as well as their acceptance by the target audience

But whatever you do, make sure you write your art with someone else in mind. Because you can't write for yourself and expect to get paid... unless you are lucky enough to have a large group of people who are exactly like you.