The question of ethical writing has been a topic of discussion in my writing workshops for the past few months. I’ve been asked to help at some creative writing workshops in the past, but I’ve also been asked by clients to write about ethical topics in their own personal writing. It’s interesting that the discussion over ethics has been so prevalent. There are so many topics that have many opinions on ethical writing and yet there are so many ethical issues in our society.
I think there are a number of factors that contribute to the debate. One of them is that ethical writing is a subjective matter. For example, a lot of our personal ethics are deeply personal and we have them because we feel like we are in our bodies or our minds when we write about them. We are not just writing our personal opinions, we are actually talking about our own experiences and the experiences of others who have similar opinions.
And yet, we can have a lot of opinions about writing about ethics, but we are still not completely sure we are right on the issue. Our personal opinions are subject to change over time, and our experiences and feelings as writers also influence our opinions. So if our personal opinions are wrong, then we should feel free to change them. This is a form of self-criticism that is usually frowned upon, but in fact is often necessary.
So how do we know what we know? By doing it ourselves.
One thing that comes to mind is that you can learn a lot about writing by reading other work. As a writer, you should feel free to spend as much time writing as you want for as long as you want. But this doesn’t mean that you should spend your time writing 100% of the time. A writer should take a break every once in a while, maybe some time you’re not writing, and just do something else, like go outside.
We all know how the world works around us. We live in a society where the government and corporations have so much power that they seem to be able to do whatever they want. But when you get to be in the position to actually write, then you have to ask yourself how you will define what is ethical. The answer is, a lot.
Well one of the most basic questions you need to ask yourself is, “what is ethical?” If you can’t answer that question, then you won’t have any idea what to write about. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t write about certain things. But you need to have a clear definition of what is ethical.
The ethics of a writer are often defined by the writer herself, but a lot of the time, you are defining what is ethical for someone else. If you are writing a memoir, for example, you probably wont write about your childhood, but if you are writing about a past love, then you might write about that too.
But writing a book about your past love might be a little easier than writing a book about how you got pregnant with your first child. And if your memoirs are going to be controversial, you might want to write about that too. In fact, it is really an ethical choice to write about some of those things, because some people might not be comfortable with the topic.
As it turns out, writing about your childhood might not be a bad idea if you are writing about your life. It helps you look back at who you were and what things you did that you are unhappy about with your life, but you might also want to write about your love life.