Have you - and I mean this as a direct question - noticed a change in style in your writing since you began blogging actively? (I even include Falsie in the list of questionees, despite feeling that his 600-word comments prove that his style is not that untouched)
Some time back, Neha Vish posted on the same topic. And in recent days, it's got me thinking along similar lines.
About how many ideas and topics don't get posted because of these unspoken rules regarding the length of blog posts, with everybody aware that their readers often have scores (or, in the case of one incorrigible reader, 520) of other posts to read, and so subconsciously tailoring their posts.
About whether the reason most bloggers end up writing in a witty/funny/snarky tone is indirectly because of said time constraints (because people with little time are more likely to read something lighter or sarcastic in vein, than a long treatise, brilliant though it may be*), or because the barrier of virtualspace allows them to drop the shackles of polite behaviour, or because that's how they wrote anyway.
About whether bloggers write less or more about certain topics, and in a certain style, because of reader expectations and pressure. And if so, whether and by how much this is heightened/curbed when bloggers move beyond the anonymous nicknames and get to know each other.
This is apart from my belief that writing styles have changed dramatically since people stopped...well...writing. Certainly I wouldn't be this fluid and semi-prolific if I weren't typing this down.
So, go on - has blogging changed your style of writing?
And to answer the question for myself, yes it has. I'm moving more and more towards a simplistic, yet not bare-bones style of writing, and find I cannot muster the effort to turn ideas into long theory posts (this post is a good example of the same). This may or may not have to do with an aim to try to post on a regular basis, which in turn is fuelled by the knowledge that if I don't, then I'll just go the way of bloggers like Flaffy, AQC, MockTurtle, J., and the Skeptical lady.
* Which is why I won't Urf a thesis....and that's all I have to say about that.
25.2.08
And while we're on blogs
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13 comments:
"I even include Falsie in the list of questionees, despite feeling that his 600-word comments prove that his style is not that untouched"
Huh? Surely the 600-word comments prove that my style is untouched, since I haven't taken to keeping things short. And if you feel my style is ot that untouched, then surely it makes more sense to include me in the list of questionees, so why the 'despite'?
I do think my style has changed (at least as far as the blog goes), but that has more to do with my own time constraints than concern for anyone else's.
Actually, the only 'readers' who've caused me to change my style are my parents - knowing they read 2x3x7 every single day means that a) I need to keep it relatively clean and b) I need to post at least once every 48 hours to avoid the panic phone calls asking if I'm ill.
I don't have a "style of writing", unless superfluous use of profanity counts, so blogging had nothing to change. It has, however, honed my voice. But I don't know if that is unique to the platform, or something borne of sheer repetition. I suspect it's the latter.
Heh, you are all meta today.
IMHO, blogging is not writing. Just like riding a bicycle with trainer wheels is not the same as flying a space shuttle (with or without the trainer wheels.)
So have I noticed a change in my blogging style since I started blogging? Most certainly. I basically decided that "faster, crappier, looser" was really my style of blogging because
1. I am not Falstaff
2. I prefer to save the "steam" for writing
And reader expectations or pressure? C'mon. (OK, since Tabula Rasa reads my music posts, I know I can't blog about my favorite Carpenters songs or he will just laugh at me.) Remember that suicide-blogger? Now she was blogging under pressure.
psst KM - is it "We've only just begun"? Do you get teary eyed at the "Sharing horizons that are new to us" line? You can tell me. I swear, I won't breathe a word to TR.
HEY!
no dissing karen carpenter, okay? one of my first true loves, she was.
*sigh*
and to answer the question -- no, i don't think my "style" has changed. taht recent tag made me go back and look through some old posts, and i don't perceive any differences in what i do or how i do it. (as falsie said, things that observers might attribute to inherently evolving styles might simply have been induced by situational constraints.)
i'm very clear that i blog for myself. if you like it, great, let's talk. if not, as i quoted in that same tag -- tujhe mirchi lagi to main kya karoon.
??!: sorry for the thread hijack.
OTP: oh, I don't know, the line "white laces and promises" just bweaks my heart. That and "Rainy days and mondays".
//and now it seems TR *won't* mock me cruelly.
Falsie:
Oops, that "not that" shouldn't have been there.
Km/Otp:
Go for it, you two.
All:
Zank you for inputs. One is noting down very carefully for thesis.
KM:
We may have to have a little debate on this. Blogging may not yet be writing, but it is getting there. There are clearly certain nuances, certain stylistic influences, and even certain criteria that differentiate a good blogger from somebody who just blogs (and that post comes up tomorrow).
You're right...I think this is meta-week.
??!: It's "getting there"? How? And more importantly, why should it get anywhere?
Your statement implies that Writing has a certain quality to it that blogging lacks today.
My point is that blogging has nothing to do with writing. Sure, blogging involves words and sentences and punctuation but the similarity ends there.
But I'm very curious about "certain nuances, certain stylistic influences..". Look forward to that.
Oh my posts have changed. No question of it. I was all serious and thoughtful and longwinded and now now I'm flippant, frivolous and prolix. Where I used to think posting once a week or once in ten days was enough, I now have to post every day.
I need therapy.
Oh, and I thought you were going to stop taking swipes at me?
(it's no longer 520, by the way. Post coming up.)
SB:
This is bad of me. I'm picking on easy targets.....please don't syc Falsie on me. Pleaaaaaaaase!
KM:
Oh, but blogging is a form of writing. Or could be taken to be. But let me post about this. We take debate there?
Well. Yeah.
Not, maybe since I blogging. But, something like, an evolution from when I began to now.
now i'm an 'easy target'. great. where are the worms?
SB:
Better soft than 'easy', no? Kidddding. We all luwww you. You know that.
Falsie:
Protracted double-take.
knowing they read 2x3x7 every single day means that a) I need to keep it relatively clean
You call your Urf post "relatively clean"? Or did they just happily miss that?
And why don't your folks comment - they should comment. That'd be so much fun, if only to give a whole new perspective to you.
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