Yes, that’s correct, I’m one of those anal retentive writers who believe in spelling and capitalization and punctuation and grammar. Links lend credibility and context.
Sometimes people mistake my style for stream of consciousness. They would be surprised to learn that almost everything is outlined and constructed. What I do is tell stories, like Garrison Keillor or Mark Twain or Dashiell Hammett. Because most of them do in fact come from personal experience while they have a middle, they seldom have a firm beginning or end; though I am always trying to make a point.
In the beginning. Where is that exactly? First the Earth was formed, then the dinosaurs came and Jesus rode them like ponies. Homer started his poems in medias res and at the beginning we are on the shores of Troy or Ithaca and have the great relief for the rest of the tedious tale that our hero makes it that far at least, so we have no serious concerns for his welfare.
Much of the rest may seem mere wandering flashbacks but because the reader has peeked ahead they are assured they will eventually get somewhere.
So every essay is also all about process as long as you learn from it.
Here I’ve been experimenting with form, trying to write shorter, and more political, and shorter AND more political. An ideal Front Page piece will have 200 to 500 words and at least one graphic or blockquote for visual interest. That’s about 4 or five paragraphs. Not much time to get to the point.
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I’m a great believer in them.
I’m beginning to start crafting my comments more as well.
In this format at Docudharma, one can really stretch out in comments – it’s not the rapid-fire do-it-in-a-minute pace of Daily Kos, though it can be that way if the situation calls for it. I can even comment the next day if the essays are worth thinking about that long (and often they are!).
I like your description of your craft. The content is, I feel, highly original and often very helpful.
It’s almost two weeks and I’m still not sleepy til about 4ish.
So had to check in here and say hello.
Notice I’m capitalizing? Just for you.
Absolutely agree that short is sweeter in front page pieces. Most pieces actually.
Btw, Jesus rode the dinos like ponies? Didn’t know that and I didn’t notice a link for that assertion.
Enjoying your version of witr… but you didn’t mention baseball.
Goodnight J-boy. and thanks.
there is some grammar i will not do.
I have an English BA, which means I can toss out the rulez whenever I damn well please. 😉
Have you seen the film “Brick”?
The director set a Hammett-like script & dialogue in a OC/teenybopper movie. It was pretty cool.
When I first started writing them down, I worried about that. ‘Rattlers’,from last week was a shortened version of one of those. I am trying to wedge them into some fiction.
Why?
I worried about that too for a while, I seem to be over it for now.
in comments. I have a hard time because I type 1fingered & many times I leave a lot out. It takes several passes before a comment is complete.
And then I’m never sure about grammar or punctuation, so I make use of …. as pauses in thought, replacing punctuation for the most part.
Many times my comments are very short because I feel I must say something, the comment/essay is just too damn good to leave merely a pony.
Essays and the talemaster are written off-line with spell & grammar checks (although sometimes the suggested grammar just sounds wrong, so I don’t use it)
A post about how good your posts are?
Comparing yourself to Twain and Homer?
Isn’t this something pinche would do?
content varies from meta to the various persona’s you take on, and the form these are written in. The political blatant I get ad nauseaum right and left, here, there everywhere, yours makes me wonder. The wonder moves me from my point of here to where you take me, truly not expected but always to the point. Politics is more then the lingo offered. Yours shine through. They keep the open engaged much like Armandos and the Buhdys.
long before any attempt to put my own thoughts on paper.
I admit to editing my work based on visuals. For example, if the line length is static, and some of my words fall over into the next line, and that isn’t pleasing to me, I’ll go back and edit the paragraph until the line breaks look okay.
This is a terrible thing to admit on a public blog! d;-)
or meta writing.
Brevity will always lure me in, even if I’m unfamiliar with the writer. I only read long(er) pieces if I know the author or the subject fascinates me in some way.
Many times I don’t comment, but will rec. Yesterday, for instance, on the Mormon piece, I wandered away from here to a site run by exMormons. A friend of mine joined the religion and moved to Utah a few years back. She called me about four years ago, she was on a mission, and the call was her hinting around to see if I was interested in seeing her… and her companion. I wasn’t.
Okay, now I’m just rambling.