When You Reach for a Sword, but find only a Pen

Edward Bulwer-Lytton famously wrote "the pen is mightier than the sword". These words are recycled again and again through society. Everyone know's them, most people realize the importance/legitimacy of them, but everyone still thinks that the sword is way cooler than the pen.  Including me.

I must admit, somewhat sheepishly, that a major motivator behind my writing is the potential to write something truly awesome. Awesome in the true sense of the word, not the slang-90s sense.  All I want to do is write one thing that is awe-inspiring.

Becoming a published writer and seeing my books on shelves at Borders and Barnes & Noble would be pretty cool, don't get me wrong.  There is a part of me that would love to be known as a popular blogger or newspaper columnist. But under all that is the desire to reach people at their core.  To write something that makes society look at itself and evaluate.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive enough to think that I can just decide that I want to do this, no matter how badly, and just stumble upon it.  But that isn't to say I'm not willing to keep writing and keep thinking and keep getting my work out their in the hopes that maybe out of the thousands of things I write, one of them will touch someone in a powerful way.

As an avid reader I am extremely familiar with the power of words. I am literally three pages into Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and am already hearing from other people how wonderful and eye-opening this 1,000+ page epic of a novel really is.

I enjoy good stories. Hell, sometimes I'll even stumble upon a great story. But only a few times have I read something that makes me sit back and mouth the word "whoa".  That! is what I look for when searching for things to read. And that; that is exactly what I dream of writing.

My goal is to make people sit back in their chairs, rub their temples, and just shake their heads because they just read something that they thought was unique, or eye-opening, or influential.

After writing that last sentence I realized that "influential" is what I want to be as a write.  I have always admired the people who don't always run their mouths, but when they speak; boy do people listen. I don't want my opinions to necessarily become others. In fact that's not what I want at all. What I do want though is for what I think, say, and write to make people think about their own opinions and shape them into more intricate ones.

All of this I see myself doing with a mighty sword in my hand. But in reality.. all I have is a pen. What's worse? I'm not a huge fan of writing on paper. So what I really have is a cheap wireless keyboard and a blog.  Here's to making the best of it.

Blessings, 

-Connor