05-18-08, 10:35 AM
Prickly Pro Defensio
(Yeah, if you stumble on this from MAL itself it might make no sense. Such is life.)
This is undoubtedly true as far as it goes, but (if you'll excuse me letting my pride talk for a moment) Hige fails to account for the possibility of consciously-accepted contstraints. If one plans one's 'proper' blog, and spends time practicing (see the date on that post?), one might be expected to have clear ideas about what will and (more to the point) what will not be allowed. Actually, the fact that I planned and practiced should tell you that I had fairly clear ideas about what I would write, and not write, pretty much from the moment I decided that I wanted to blog.
Blogs are by nature personal and informal. It's stupid to try to make yours anything else. But then, it's pretty stupid to suggest (for example) that G Gundam is an ecological fable - and since I was going to do that sort of thing, I figured I might as well do some other stupid things too. So I have rules: I restrict my use of 'I' somewhat (though not nearly as much as I do in proper essays), I apply question and exclamation marks according to out-of-date convention (so they're allowed within a sentence as well as at the end), et cetera. The general tone is analytical, as Mike rightly identifies it.
There are content rules, too: I don't write about not being able to write (yes, it does happen to me!); I don't recommend newly-discovered corners of the internet; I don't post content which I think falls below a certain standard; I don't write about blog politics or the ABAs.
The Animanachronism very rarely blogsturbates (though it does happen) - not because I think blogsturbation is wrong, but because I think The Animanachronism is meant to be a place for something different. It's not unlike the reasoning behind my being teetotal: personally, I dislike the taste of most alcoholic drinks, so I don't drink them. Others do (my Dad loves his beer), and that's fine - I'm the guy who gets to take the incriminating photographs and hear the incoherent, slurred confessions, after all (perhaps that's why I don't go drinking with my Dad). I have an anime blog, about anime. I dislike reading posts which are about people, rather than something interesting, so I avoid writing them. It's a personal taste.
But sometimes I feel like it despite myself. So I dump that here. I'm sure the idea's not original, but I do have the honour of being the person who came up with the idea of feeding my MAL blog into my 'proper' blog's sidebar.
Hige thinks that constraints don't matter if they're in one's head. I reply: those ones matter most, and sometimes it's worth keeping them (I can't speak for Bateszi on that). Free verse is all fine and good, but I have a lot of admiration for a poet who can invent a fixed, rhyming stanza and then use the same form over and over again without becoming boring for seventy-two cantos (plus the unfinished seventh book).
Constraints can, in fact, be constructive. I always smile when I rewatch The Matrix and Neo says 'I'm going to show them a world without rules' at the end. Because a world without rules would be no world at all: no thought, no speech, nothing. What we need to do - and perhaps what Neo would've said if the writers had wanted truth rather than a nice line - is make sure we know which rules are optional, and that we discard ones we're not happy with. And some of us quite like regimentation. To mix Hige's oral metaphor with my poetic analogy, free verse can suck my (strictly-controlled) diction and syntax.
(True to my rules, I'm posting this here rather than on The Animanachronism.)
Hige said:
Bloggers, especially those who have been around for a while, feel that their main blog has a set of conventions – ones that relate to the writing style and content themselves and others that relate to the supposed expectations of outside sources (i.e. readership). These standards become all the more exacting as the blog grows in age; as they home into what’s popular, what suits them as a writer and perhaps most importantly, what fits into the perceived identity of the blog itself. These unconscious dictums at once help the blogger build a distinct character for their blog but equally stifle and repress any desire to stray from the formula.
Bloggers, especially those who have been around for a while, feel that their main blog has a set of conventions – ones that relate to the writing style and content themselves and others that relate to the supposed expectations of outside sources (i.e. readership). These standards become all the more exacting as the blog grows in age; as they home into what’s popular, what suits them as a writer and perhaps most importantly, what fits into the perceived identity of the blog itself. These unconscious dictums at once help the blogger build a distinct character for their blog but equally stifle and repress any desire to stray from the formula.
This is undoubtedly true as far as it goes, but (if you'll excuse me letting my pride talk for a moment) Hige fails to account for the possibility of consciously-accepted contstraints. If one plans one's 'proper' blog, and spends time practicing (see the date on that post?), one might be expected to have clear ideas about what will and (more to the point) what will not be allowed. Actually, the fact that I planned and practiced should tell you that I had fairly clear ideas about what I would write, and not write, pretty much from the moment I decided that I wanted to blog.
Blogs are by nature personal and informal. It's stupid to try to make yours anything else. But then, it's pretty stupid to suggest (for example) that G Gundam is an ecological fable - and since I was going to do that sort of thing, I figured I might as well do some other stupid things too. So I have rules: I restrict my use of 'I' somewhat (though not nearly as much as I do in proper essays), I apply question and exclamation marks according to out-of-date convention (so they're allowed within a sentence as well as at the end), et cetera. The general tone is analytical, as Mike rightly identifies it.
There are content rules, too: I don't write about not being able to write (yes, it does happen to me!); I don't recommend newly-discovered corners of the internet; I don't post content which I think falls below a certain standard; I don't write about blog politics or the ABAs.
The Animanachronism very rarely blogsturbates (though it does happen) - not because I think blogsturbation is wrong, but because I think The Animanachronism is meant to be a place for something different. It's not unlike the reasoning behind my being teetotal: personally, I dislike the taste of most alcoholic drinks, so I don't drink them. Others do (my Dad loves his beer), and that's fine - I'm the guy who gets to take the incriminating photographs and hear the incoherent, slurred confessions, after all (perhaps that's why I don't go drinking with my Dad). I have an anime blog, about anime. I dislike reading posts which are about people, rather than something interesting, so I avoid writing them. It's a personal taste.
But sometimes I feel like it despite myself. So I dump that here. I'm sure the idea's not original, but I do have the honour of being the person who came up with the idea of feeding my MAL blog into my 'proper' blog's sidebar.
Hige thinks that constraints don't matter if they're in one's head. I reply: those ones matter most, and sometimes it's worth keeping them (I can't speak for Bateszi on that). Free verse is all fine and good, but I have a lot of admiration for a poet who can invent a fixed, rhyming stanza and then use the same form over and over again without becoming boring for seventy-two cantos (plus the unfinished seventh book).
Constraints can, in fact, be constructive. I always smile when I rewatch The Matrix and Neo says 'I'm going to show them a world without rules' at the end. Because a world without rules would be no world at all: no thought, no speech, nothing. What we need to do - and perhaps what Neo would've said if the writers had wanted truth rather than a nice line - is make sure we know which rules are optional, and that we discard ones we're not happy with. And some of us quite like regimentation. To mix Hige's oral metaphor with my poetic analogy, free verse can suck my (strictly-controlled) diction and syntax.
(True to my rules, I'm posting this here rather than on The Animanachronism.)
Posted by Leuconoe | 05-18-08, 10:35 AM | 3 comments
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HvO | 05-18-08, 12:34 PM
You're right to point out that I didn't consider this angle in the post. I definitely considered it but left it out because I wanted to examine specifically the other side - people who may not be wholly self-motivated in their blogging strategy."Hige thinks that constraints don't matter if they're in one's head" In the article I presented this position for the sake of argument, but personally I don't wholly subscribe to the 'free verse' method. Knowing your strengths is a big factor and I certainly wouldn't attempt writing in way I *know* I'd be awful at. Perfecting a formula is admirable because fundamentally we're unable to be good at everything all at once (short of some prodigal genius). Noting what you're capable of perfecting and working on that is a much better use of time, I agree. I just wanted to address how that decision, in some cases, pre-empts any potential new methods that someone could equally excel in. Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to respond. I have a bad habit of nasal-gazing, but a lot of interesting things seem to be born from it. |
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Leuconoe | 05-18-08, 11:11 AM
Yeah.
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Owen | 05-18-08, 11:09 AM
Cool, we said the same thing in a bunch of different words (for the most part).
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