In my pursuit of pancreativity, I'm finding that writing is harder than drawing.

I suppose that I should clarify that I mean writing well is harder than drawing well. Perhaps this is because I've been drawing my entire life and have a BFA in the visual arts, but I have also been writing since I learned my ABC's in kindergarten.

More than 99% of Americans can read and write, though, just as most people can only doodle stick figures or basic maps, the literacy of your average person is utilitarian. Exchanging text messages, composing emails, and posting to your Facebook status is ill practice for more lofty literary expressions.

Sure, you may learn proper grammar and spelling to conform to the agreed-upon rules of language, just as an artist learns the basics of composition and form. Then there are the varied tools -- the writer with a pen and ruled paper or the word processor of whatever electronic device they choose, and the artist with pencils, paper, pigments, cameras, Photoshop, or whatever else becomes their medium.

When I compare the mode of implementation in either disciplines, writing appears simpler than visual media, in that you write the same 26 letters and some punctuation, all in black, while the artist forms a more complex image with line and shade and often color. After all, the old adage is that "a picture is worth a thousand words."

Perhaps the reason I find writing to be difficult is the limit of the medium, then. If I treat words as just another way to create a "picture," it would be like trying to express the color red with a gray graphite pencil.

No, it's not fair to compare the two in such a way, because while visual art may be mostly understood by anyone with functioning eyes, the foundation of a writer is an agreement of society itself -- the implicit contract of shared language, which, if recorded, would state that in order for a concept of any given word to be understood, both parties must have agreed upon the meaning beforehand.

All language is code, an extremely complex code which varies between location, nationality, belief, and even between two human beings. Sure, there may be code within a work of art, such as the symbolism of colors and objects linked to a social context beyond the subject matter of a picture. But the code of the 26 letters of English is not something innate to a person, it must always be learned.

So, here is the challenge -- I must consider the audience more when I write than when I draw. This makes me anxious, that I may not use this 26-letter code in the proper way. If I don't do it right, all is lost, because people are impatient. They can view a picture in a fraction of a second, but to read words takes many minutes, and a book, many hours or days.

How do I present the 26-letter code to these people, and compel them to lend me an ear for several hours? There are so many answers to this question, so many opinions posted on this great expanse called the Internet, so many generalizations as absurd as the ads trying to entice me to lose weight with this "one weird secret."

Sigh.

And, no, I will not create a "graphic novel" to solve this.