{"id":82095,"date":"2025-05-05T06:50:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T05:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=82095"},"modified":"2025-05-05T06:50:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T05:50:18","slug":"why-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/05\/why-write\/","title":{"rendered":"Why write?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having taken much of last weekend off, I do not need another bank holiday today, so the day is going to be spent working on a plan for my proposed book.<\/p>\n<p>Two thoughts were sent to me on this issue. One is by the great black activist and writer, James Baldwin, who said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is much to agree with in that.<\/p>\n<p>The other is this piece from the late Ursula Le Guin, when receiving an award late in her life:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Ursula Le Guin\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Et9Nf-rsALk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Again, much to agree with.<\/p>\n<p>Both managed what is hard: to produce writing that changes understanding. To pretend that achieving that is anything else is to deny the effort required to do so, and the demands it makes. I am hoping my efforts will be worthwhile. What I do know is that without a very good plan, I will not start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having taken much of last weekend off, I do not need another bank holiday today, so the day is going to be spent working on<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/05\/05\/why-write\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82095"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82098,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82095\/revisions\/82098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}