There is some time between now and when I must leave the house; quiet time during which I usually nap. Today there is sufficient time to write an entry and take a snooze. My goal today is to see what 1000 words looks like on a screen in lieu of a notebook.
I am struggling a little with how to voice the entries I make in this blog. There are some options available: one would be to write it to someone, an unidentified person who is the reader and I suppose by default this is to whom most things are written, including books; or write it to s.o. who is id’d as if it were a letter; then it could be written in the objective case as an article of fact or report on s.t.; then it could be written in a conversational style where the participant was inferred as if sitting here listening. And there are probably other possibilities that will come to mind as I mush on.
There is a difficulty with conversational because in life it would depend on the personality of the person to whom I was speaking; and, for me, there would be a difficulty with expression because I would say s.t. one way but write it another. There is also a difficulty with the more formal, report-like, style because that could get stilted. Perhaps the best solution would be to approach it as I would if I was on a radio program talking about whatever the subject du jour may be. Yes, that seems to be the best of all possibilities, both the stated and implied, because it assumes a certain generic audience of peers who would be comfortable with my style of expression.
I am struggling a little with how to voice the entries I make in this blog. There are some options available: one would be to write it to someone, an unidentified person who is the reader and I suppose by default this is to whom most things are written, including books; or write it to s.o. who is id’d as if it were a letter; then it could be written in the objective case as an article of fact or report on s.t.; then it could be written in a conversational style where the participant was inferred as if sitting here listening. And there are probably other possibilities that will come to mind as I mush on.
There is a difficulty with conversational because in life it would depend on the personality of the person to whom I was speaking; and, for me, there would be a difficulty with expression because I would say s.t. one way but write it another. There is also a difficulty with the more formal, report-like, style because that could get stilted. Perhaps the best solution would be to approach it as I would if I was on a radio program talking about whatever the subject du jour may be. Yes, that seems to be the best of all possibilities, both the stated and implied, because it assumes a certain generic audience of peers who would be comfortable with my style of expression.
During the course of my years of notebook writing, I tackled some highly personal issues such as hard feelings caused by the action/ inaction of associates, opinions of why people are the way they are to me, opinions of why I am the way I am to others at times. Then there were/are entries that are devoted to issues of the day such as political commentary or the like. I am somewhat reluctant to put some of this into a blog because one never knows who will be reading it and, due to the transferability of data in digital form, what they will be doing with it. If I launched into a diatribe about s.o. or some issue, it could be publicized to my detriment.
The French dictionary acquainted me with a convention, which I have adopted in my writing, that saves a lot of time and strokes. It abbreviates someone with s.o., something with s.t., and somebody with s.b. I have adopted this convention in my writing and it has proven helpful; I thought it might be helpful to state this up front so that the reader will not be at sea about these abbreviations. There is another convention that I have come to use, it is the slash. I will be going along with a thought and say something like: then it became clear to me that she was/would be amenable to a relationship. Instead of editing the remark as it is being made, I have used the slash as a way of changing the sense of the statement without going back and re writing it. When one is scribbling along with a pen or pencil, this convention eliminates a lot of scratch outs and/or erasures. So bear with me, you’ll get used to it.
Then there is the possibility that French will appear from time to time in my writing. This is s.t. to which the reader will have to become inured. I get a little ego boost when I can use a French word to say s.t. It is a tribute I pay to my many years of studying the language without learning it very well. Someday I may relocate to France, to Chantilly, and live in a totally French environment again just to “sink or swim” with regard to this language issue.
Then there is the possibility that French will appear from time to time in my writing. This is s.t. to which the reader will have to become inured. I get a little ego boost when I can use a French word to say s.t. It is a tribute I pay to my many years of studying the language without learning it very well. Someday I may relocate to France, to Chantilly, and live in a totally French environment again just to “sink or swim” with regard to this language issue.
Already I can see that the little squiggly red line is going to be a boon to my writing in this blog. I have corrected misspelling several times as I’m going along here, s.t. I wouldn’t have done in a notebook, which is why I was appalled at the misspelling when I reviewed 2004 notes. I will yield to my propensity to try to get it right by reviewing the entry for the squiggly red line and changing the word if it is appropriate to do so. I know from experience that nothing is quite as jarring as reading a passage and finding misspelled words or bad grammar. I can’t guarantee the grammar or the word choice but at least I can give you a correctly spelled word to read.
Word 2007 has a nice feature; it displays the word count as you go along. Right now this document has 827 and it will be a morceau du gateau to know when I’ve reached the desired length. The one or two times I keyed a notes entry resulted in an entry to be one and a half keyed pages for the four sides of handwritten. If that were the case I would be there and I believe that to be a better guage than the 1000 words, although today I am going for the 1000 just to see how long an entry that will be.
The fourth paragraph above is an indication of my character. I am older and wiser and have been burned enough by gossip and backstabbing to be wary of putting it out there for people to use, especially against me. I have discovered that the emotional reaction to a situation is irrational and all too often requires me to back pedal, apologize, and do damage control in a relationship. I have a daily that says, “Realizing emotional reactions are irrational, I am more objective.” And this seems to be good advice, for me anyway. It takes a lot of the color out of my life but hey, life without red is not so bad. But at the same time, I know that all of us have a need to vent our hurt feelings from time to time. I am not going to promise that you won’t see a diatribe or two in this blog and I will have to be willing to stand for the repercussions that such will bring.
Well, that’s the thousand (1086 to here.) Later--
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