Faithful writing Pt 3

Here's something Tony Payne had to say about the Faithful Writer's conference.

As per usual, I was asked a couple of times throughout the day whether we are related. At such a day I almost wanted to say "yes we are" ;). But, despite the fact that I have exactly the same name as his wife, which was the cause of some confusion and a few jokes when I worked at Matthias Media, we aren't related (at least not in the recent past).

Anyway, it is curious how spiritual some writers make the process of writing (see I was tempted to put "spiritual" in quotation marks back then, but Mark Tredinnick told us not to use what he called "sneer quotes" - I liked that: sneer quotes - but to find another way to write it). I have read a couple of Natalie Goldberg's books in which her practice of Buddhism is so intertwined with the task of writing that at times it's hard to separate the two. But, as Tony points out in his third paragraph, the aim is very different. For Goldberg it's all about finding your true and authentic self and writing from there (and at times she went so far as to say that other people could be left to ruin in the process). As Christians I think we'd want to say that writing your authentic self is perhaps not going to be the most helpful thing, or bring about the greatest good.