Mary Pipher... and Beyond!

Although I think Mary Pipher is a little extreme in her views about how writing can and does change the world, I think she brings up some very good points and quotes. One topic she addresses very well, I think, is her description of a "change writer." The attributes, characteristics, and qualities she says must belong to a change writer are quite legitimate: open-mindedness, acceptance, urgency, a dash of subjectivity, a smidgen of objectivity, etc.... I hope she doesn't believe that all writing must be like this because that would definitely shut out a lot of good works that might have been created with different intentions. One of my favorite quotes so far is, "To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe," by Carl Sagan. This one came at the commencement of Chapter 6: Diving In - Getting Started, which is an appropriate place for it. I'm still trying to figure out if she included it for reasons other than humor. This is all I've come up with so far: 1) The universe is already created, so we don't have any excuse not to write; therefore - get started! 2) Since the universe is already created, we're really not writing from scratch because we have other stuff with which we can work. 3) We need to create in our minds the universe surrounding and incorporating a work before we can begin writing about it. All of these different perspectives, I feel, are legitimately accurate interpretations of the quote as well as interesting insights into how one can interpret the title and scope of the whole book. For, if we do live in a universe as big as some scientists make it out to be, what difference does one apple pie or one piece of writing make? Can one apple pie or one literary work really change the world? Maybe, but at the very least, they could change the way one person perceives the world. All that can be hoped is that they somehow influence more people for the better than for the worse.