My Wife Canceled My Vote

By Darvell Hunt

In our recent election, my wife’s vote cancelled my vote, but I’m still glad we both were able to express our opposing views.

If you’re in Utah, you probably know about our school voucher program. If you’re not, well, the legislature passed a law this year to allow state voucher checks to be paid to parents who enroll their kids in private schools. Many residents didn’t like the idea and forced the issue onto the ballot.

I won’t say how my wife and I voted, but we didn’t come to the same conclusion, so basically our votes cancelled each other out. And that’s fine. We each did what we thought was right, but it brought up an interesting thought.

Not everybody is going to like everything we write. No matter what we write about, nor how we deal with any given topic, somebody is going to think differently—and that’s okay. If you want to sell your writing, though, you have to make sure enough people like what you are writing to make it marketable. You certainly don’t have to sell your material to everybody, but if you do plan to sell it, you should be thinking about who may want to read (a.k.a. buy) your material before you write it.

If you’re writing for yourself, do it, enjoy it, and don’t care about what other people think. If, however, you are writing to sell, you need to think about the marketplace for which you are planning to write.

After all, writing is an art, but publishing is a business.