Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Testing, 1, 2

No, this isn't the Reach the Beach recap, but with any luck I'll have that sucker up by the end of the week. The idea behind this entry is to stretch out my stream of consciousness, something I have a bit of trouble doing when I sit down to fill this space. You see, here in lies the problem. I was an editor before I was a writer. Yes, it's about as backward as it sounds, but it's the truth. Too bad if you can't handle it.

So what's the problem with this reverse way of doing things? Simple. Editing inhibits writing, in my case anyway. In most cases editing in fact enhances writing, but when the editing prevents the writing from reaching it's full potential, you have a shitty piece of writing, even if it's grammatically correct and punctually sound. Too often when I sit down to spew my thoughts onto the screen I'm stopped dead in my thoughts to reverse, re-word or otherwise rework exactly what it is I'm trying to ramble about, and that my friends pisses me off. Why so? The Daily Runaround doesn't live up to his name - bottom line - and I oftentimes give up on an entry before it ever gets onto the screen. Such is the struggle of a perfectionist with an eye for errors.

Time to change that, or try to anyway. Less evaluating, more writing and hopefully more entries to keep everyone entertained. I'll sacrifice a few missed periods, misspellings or other minor miscues if it means I can wade through the muddle in my mind more efficiently and hit the Publish button on a regular basis.

And so far, so good. I'm pulling the plug on this entry at 20 minutes, and that includes a pee break, quick phone call and no major errors that I could pick up on with a quick once over. Next goal: RTB recap by the end of the week. Stay tuned.

3 comments:

Jeff Caron said...

At least you've got the editing thing down... I'm neither a writer nor an editor (as you've so eloquently pointed out from time to time). Whatever you are (writer, editor, or both), the daily runaround as been one of my favorite pieces of reading material in the last couple years, so you must be doing something right.

Caitlyn Clark said...

Sweet! I like it!
grammatically correct? in a blog?
I wouldn't know anything about that! I'm a painter. So I put ...... <--those ... dot... things... wherever I am unsure of what else should go there.... which... quite obviously... is very often...
;)

I love your blog!
Yay for more reading material to fill the void!

That Runner Chick said...

you edit too much, and I don't edit nearly enough. I can't even type my entries correctly, nevermind adding in punctuation!