It’s Going to Burn For Me to Say This

December 5, 2012 By

If you had to choose between being able to write a blog (but not read others’) and being able to read others’ blogs (but not write your own), which would you pick? Why?

I originally thought that 90% of bloggers would choose to read over write. Then I continued to think about it as I stared at this blank space with only a link intruding upon its white and it came to me that the percentage of those choosing to blog over reading blogs would actually be the higher percentage. Those who blog, even anonymously, do so because they want people to read their writing, their thoughts, their facts and feelings. It takes a bit of narcissism to be a writer and/or blogger. So I am going to be the statistic. The one who chooses to write over read.

To be a great writer, you have to be a great reader. To be a great reader, you don’t have to be a great writer. In any medium you choose to write, you have interests in reading. If you’re a newspaper columnist or journalist, you take interest in reading other journalists and columnists. If you’re an author, you take interests in reading other authors. Are there exceptions? Are there those who can be writers that take no interest in reading in the medium they choose to write? Of course. They are their biggest competition and inspiration. They enjoy their own writing and don’t choose to read in their medium because they don’t want to pick up another’s voice.

I would choose to write/blog over reading blogs. In my opinion, blogging even about recipes or movies and never about yourself, is still very personal because it’s your voice. You have to be careful when reading other bloggers that you don’t begin to mimic their style/voice. I need escapism and I love to write. I don’t have to read blogs in order to blog though. I can read magazines and books, news articles (yeah right*) and poetry.

I love all of you, but I would choose my blog over yours. Don’t shake your head at me, I know you’d do the same.

___________________

*So I have already discussed in a previous post on why I don’t follow the news, but I recently tried reading an article that caught my attention and it was about the boy at the Pittsburgh zoo whose mother held him up at the railing of the African Painted dog pit and he lunged forward and she couldn’t get ahold of him in time to keep him from falling in and was killed by the dogs. Heartbreakingly tragic, but the kicker of it and why I kept staring at the first paragraph is because it stated that the child believed there was Plexiglas barrier to protect him. The child was 2 years old. I don’t know if that line was coming from the journalist or what as it wasn’t very clear, but I have some questions. 1.) How does a 2 year old know about safety? 2.) How does a 2 year old know about Plexiglas? 3.) How can you tell me what the child was thinking at that time? To me it would have been “I want to pet the puppies!”, but I still wouldn’t be sure. I know it’s tragic, I could never go through something as losing a child, I’d be a fucking wreck, but where the hell was her common sense?? She’s not being charged, but the prosecutor is now figuring out if they can go after the zoo. The zoo should have had some damn signs up with a line through a woman holding up her kid at the railing.

Filed Under: Annoy Me, Debatable, Personally Me Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Use Your Words

November 27, 2012 By

In a blog post by Adam S. he mentions about great bloggers and great writers are different. I ask him how and like most the people I’ve asked how or why to, they throw the question back at me without answering it themselves. He’s the one who made the statement, why do I need to answer my own question. When people do that, “throwing the ball back into my court”, it makes me question how valid they find their own statement to be. Not the validity of the statement itself. But instead of getting into a rumble on his blog about that, I answered him. I think not every great blogger has to be a great writer, yet on a personal note I find myself being drawn only to bloggers that can write. The ones who use their words as much as imagery if not more than. Images can attract as much as they can distract.

In a past blog post of my own, I mention how I rarely put in images or graphics into my own writings (or bloggings). I’ll add to that, I will add featured images if the blog layout I desire requires it because it would look silly without them. Luckily I fell into one that I like and can do with or without the featured images.

Some bloggers who may think they are not such great writer’s will use images and memes to elaborate and supplement their posts and do so with such ingenuity it makes them a great blogger. Some are great writer’s and know themselves to be will place images not to supplement, but to heighten the piece. Then there are bloggers like myself who use only their words because they are too lazy to create images to go with their work. Unlike how Alice feels in Alice in Wonderland, I don’t read picture books so I think the ability to string along words to produce imagery in someone else’s mind or to make them think from only my words is important. It’s something I practice everyday because I love to read and I love to write, I just choose to write in a blogging platform.

Back to Adam’s post of being either the Art blogger or Conversational blogger, black and white I’d fit into the Conversational category. But in a world with color, I fit easily into both. Art is my words, my craft, my thing. I don’t need pictures to be artful. To you or someone else art can be pictures and graphics and images and sculptures or music. Whatever you deem your creative talent. I think everyone is creative in their own right. The accountant in the office, numbers are her thing. She can’t draw, doesn’t paint or write, but she puts numbers together to make a big picture down to the penny. I cannot do that. Even simple math throws me. That C.E.O for that major company that’s world wide, power is his craft and leadership his thing. Lawyer is law, Judge is law and decisions, Pharmacy Technician is medications and customer service. It may not be deemed “creative” to the people at large, but if you’re good at something, at anything artsy or not, it’s your talent and your craft.

My words are my self-proclaimed art. I use my words. Just because I want you to, does not mean you have to, but I want you to use your words. What do you have to say?

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Filed Under: Debatable Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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