Have you ever heard the name H.L. Mencken? He was an American journalist, satirist, essayist… and just about any other “ist” you can think of when it comes to writing. He is considered one of the most influential American writers of the first half of the 20th century. He once said, “There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.”
It took me a good number of years of calling myself a writer before I really learned the lesson of those words. I would often declare a subject uninteresting and decide that nothing exciting could be written about it. I might begrudgingly take an assignment and only put minimal effort into it because I thought the subject was dull.
But I was wrong.
As time went on, and the more I learned about writing and my responsibilities as a writer (from books, courses, and some pretty harsh critics …), I changed my attitude and jumped on Mencken’s bandwagon. What makes a topic or subject interesting is the writer. And the tougher the challenges are to find interesting aspects of a seemingly uninteresting topic, the better writer you’ll become.
If you face what might seem like a dull topic, look at it from another perspective. Turn it upside down, inside out or 90 degrees to the left. Step away and look from afar. Step forward and look from within. Drop the attitude and adopt the courage to explore something you know little about. Then take your readers on that discovery mission with you.
