At the church I attend, Ed the pastor does a series each year called "God at the Movies." 

This week, while introducing the series, he commented that lots of believers limit their watching and reading of stories to the stuff "Christian" authors and producers offer, which is usually some attempt to adapt the kind of "secular" art they appreciate into stories the most delicate believers won't find offensive. 

So, these readers and viewers partake in largely derivative stories with all but the least dangerous truths bleached out of them. 

Better, he suggested, to realize that God appears stories no matter the author's beliefs or intentions. Better for us to read secular stories with an eye for spiritual truth than to waste our time on stories that will only reinforce our safe beliefs. 

And I'll add, better for artists of Christian beliefs to give up pandering and approach their work with an attitude like Flannery O'Connor's when she advised that Christian fiction is simply honest fiction written by a Christian. 

Note the word honest.  

An element of what we'd call a talent or gift is the ability or the will to do whatever is required to develop it. 

When people say to be a writer you need to write every day, what they actually mean is, you need to be willing and able to spend whatever time and energy is required to transform your potential gift or talent into a flourishing one. 

I took up guitar when I was twelve. But I never could make myself spend more than about ten minutes a day actually practicing. I might play longer, but not work on scales or on learning new and difficult riffs. Many years later, I'm no better at guitar than I was at fourteen. But even now, I could gain some real mastery if I could make myself practice a half hour a day.

My dad built and operated a par three golf course. Most of my life, I've played golf, but I'll never be able to approach par regularly unless I play at least once a week and add to that a couple hours on the driving range and another hour chipping and putting. 

The point is, I could be a good (though probably not great) musician or a superior golfer if I would, and could make myself, put in the required time and energy.

We're born with gifts. Making them work or not is our choice.

C.S. Lewis, in Made For Heaven, argues that since God's nature is love, and the essence of love is giving, " ...in self-giving, if anywhere, we touch the rhythm not only of all creation but of all being."

Let's say that's true. And let's apply the truth to our writing.

Maybe as we approach our writing with the intention of giving all we've got, then we'll be given more to give, and so on. Holding back, out of timidity, laziness, embarrassment or whatever, could be our tragic flaw.

F. Nietzsche, who coined the phrase "God is dead," had another favorite line. He admonished people to "Become who you are." I wonder, is this a prerequisite to Lewis's self-giving. Until we are who we are, we may only be giving a ration of stuff we picked up from others, and withholding our true selves.

Perhaps becoming who we are, instead of what we believe others would have us be, should be our first priority. And maybe we should pursue that goal with all the energy we can bring to it. As Mother Teresa contended, “…it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.” 

I picked up a book, What Nietzsche Really Said. Overall,it's a valuable book, by some professors from  Texas. But what follows, I balked at: 

In defense of wicked acts either inspired by Nietzsche or justified by reference to him, the authors wrote, "Once again, we want to proclaim, rather indignantly, that an author is not responsible for vile misreadings of his works."

Okay, it would be silly to hold an author to blame for the extreme misreading of a theme or metaphor. But to give a writer absolute license to create without taking any responsibility is in a sense denying the power of language and image.

For example, the Beatle's White Album got some vile misreadings by Charles Manson. He perceived "Blackbird" as a call for him to spark a violent uprising by the black community, and at least one reason he engineered the Tate murders was so that white folks, blaming black folks, would take revenge, causing black folks to retaliate. That interpretation was truly nuts. But for him to accept the literal words of "Happiness is a Warm Gun" as a validation of his homicidal inclinations didn't require the slightest misreading of any kind except to decline to replace the literal with the symbolic.

If I went to Texas and bumped into the professors, I might argue that while authors shouldn't plague themselves with guilt over potential misreadings, they most certainly should consider how their words might affect impressionable readers. And children are the only impressionable ones around.