On Blog Writing

As there is a chance now that some people might read this blog who have not had an opportunity to meet me, either in real life or virtually, I though I should put up a mild disclaimer about my excessive use of italics and capitalization and occasionally abbreviations and extreme abuse of parentheses. And overly-long sentences.

I made a very deliberate choice a few years ago in my blogging past to write out my posts the way I speak, on the most part. (And yes, for the curious, this is not my first blog. I imagine it will not be my last.) As everyone knows, speaking is not always grammatically correct, and the overly long sentences clearly reflect that, as do the sometimes fractured posts.

For those who have met me and have conversed with me at length, you know about my tendency to stress words, the use my hands to emphasize points, to speak loudly and often enthusiastically. To sometimes insert random factoids into a much longer narrative, to supplement my stories and share knowledge, mostly. The italics, the capitalizations, the parentheses are all reflections of that. I have been told that reading my posts is like listening to me tell stories, and people can sometimes “hear” my voice.

This is exactly the effect I am trying to achieve.

Rest assured, I can write concisely. I can write to a thesis, or a main point. I can even tone down the excessive abuse of keyboard options and still get my point across. But why would I? That’s not what the blog is about at all. The blog is trying to recapture my experiences abroad as they really are, although I admit that I might not post about boring days, or bad ones.

This term I am taking a class in creative writing. I have been told by my classmates that I have a very distinctive voice, which they could track from my first story, which was a light chick-lit romantic comedy, to my second piece which is travel writing about Cardiff. When I write for class I tone down my conversational style considerably, but it is still there. And I like it, even if it is not professional. I’m certainly trying to develop my own tone and style here, and I will use the tools available to me in the limited medium of words alone to do so. Yes, blogs can be cross-medium heavy. I’ve made a Vimeo account so I can start really sharing my videos, and I’m still playing around with photo options. But I enjoy the written word most, and in the time it takes to write five posts I can manage to upload one video and I might have figured out how to cross-post it to this blog. So most of my posts will be word-oriented rather than picture-heavy.

Consider this post a disclaimer, I suppose. This blog is not the place to judge my traditional writing ability. There are other places where you can see my ability to break down an argument or write on topic. Here is a place for me to develop my writerly voice, as it were, and also share my experiences abroad. Hopefully in a more amusing way.

And for those of you who think this post used a particular number of especially literary words, know that I do that when speaking as well. I have been known to liberally apply, “thusly,” when I am arguing a point in ernest. I’m sure my roommates could back me up on that one.