I really like this distinction you make between violinist and a fiddler.

At this point in my writing career, I’m definitely more of a fiddler.

I really like this distinction you make between violinist and a fiddler.

At this point in my writing career, I’m definitely more of a fiddler.

However, like you, I was/am an award-winning journalist (though I tossed the award in the trash some time ago). So I know how to write in an Associated Press-approved style and can even argue about some of their rules (and wasted more than enough time of my life as an editor on my college newspaper vehemently making such arguments).

Ultimately, I like how you are pointing out that as writers, we have to consider which audience we are writing for. This is challenging for me because I like to write on all sorts of topics and, as a lover of language and my gift for it, I can sometimes get carried away with myself.

But the real gift of this article is you are reminding us that, no matter how hard we try, we are not going to please everyone and that is okay!

An example from my own life: I wrote a series on climate change that was sort of the culmination of my 2018 writing goal of posting a lengthy blog post every week. I absolutely love that series and think the final essay is one of the best things I’ve ever written.

Yet a writer friend, a person whose writing I really respect, told me it was “shit.” Now, we were in the middle of a falling out so her reaction to me was caught up in the emotion of that. However, she told me that my writing meandered and often argued against itself and ultimately had no point.

Well, well, well!

Turns out she was and is more of a violinist while I like to fiddle on the roof and in the waiting room.

Okay, once again, I’ve carried on probably longer than need be, but as a fiddler who writes these responses to Medium articles without going back and making edits, well, it’ll have to be!

-Bryan