(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:27 am)
I have a tendency to ramble. I was reminded of this when participating in my first-ever podcast recording with J over at wynia.org. It’s only really a problem when I forget what it was I was originally talking about; I think most people who know me well come to expect it, and I’m OK with this most of the time. On the other hand, it does bother me that I lose track of my own conversations. I’m easily fascinated by tangents; in writing, this is forgivable because I can read what I just wrote and rescue my chain of thoughts by hammering in the connective logic.
A related issue I have with myself is the length of my rambles. I tend to run verbose, and I suspect this makes my blog inaccessible to daily readers.
So I have an idea: limit the amount of text in each post. This is an artificial constraint that may force me to focus on what I’m trying to say, deliver the punch line, and then get on with my life. The Quickposts category was an earlier attempt to do this, but I’ve noticed that these tend to be more “open-ended” inquiries. In my regular posts, I like to draw some kind of conclusion, or identify critical insights as a leave-behind.
By limiting the length of an article, I can focus on delivering a single idea with enough supporting context to make my point. I’m not sure what ramifications this will have for my blogging, but we’ll see how it goes.
I’ve just adjusted the size of my WordPress article composition window to hold about 250-300 words on my 1024×768 PowerBook screen; 24 lines high, in case anyone is wondering. That should make it easier to keep within the constraint without actually counting words.
7 Comments
Aw, don’t do that. Tangents are what make things interesting. Though I guess you should limit your meandering once in a while. Tangents are as much a part of the writing as anything else.
I’m not sure it’s a great idea; if the issue is one you have with yourself, that’s fine, but I don’t think any of your readers are really saying “gosh, he keeps going and going and going”.
well, I’m not, anyway.
Regardless, I’m sure your posts will keep on being wonderful.
Glen: I like tangents too! I’m just wondering how they affect my ability to focus. So I’ll likely do 250 word posts on purpose (particularly, with “ideal tickling my head”) posts and see how that affects my writing. Since my memory seems to be associative rather than on-purpose, I doubt tangents will fade away :-)
Phil: Thanks Phil! One of the triggering thoughts was that there are a lot of interesting blog posts out there that are long, and I mentally file them away for “some other day”. Which never comes. But I invariably read the short posts. Maybe there is a mixture of 250 words and longer posts that make for an optimum mix.
Also, these kind of arbitrary design limits can foster creativity. Or so I’m told :-)
I’ve not managed to read any of your writing since you did your GTD review however it’s funny you say “I mentally file them away for “some other day” ” as that is actually what I’ve been doing with your posts lately. The thing is yours just keep on coming …just look how many between then and now!
However, I would hate to suggest you stop, slow down or even shorten. One thing to remember is that even though you are posting in a linear way, your readers may be coming at it from all kinds of angles. I may have your posts coming in chronologically via RSS but others may come in via links to your Printable CEO and only be interested in your productivity posts.
At the end of the day you are well known enough to be able relax and ramble as that is quite possibly one of the things that marks you as different. I have to admit I never even finished your full GTD review BUT it encouraged me to pick up the book again and come back to compare notes with it and your recent burst of posts (which is why I am here now).
Look at the posts Kathy Sierra makes on http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/ they are often huge but once you do get the time to read them are well worth it. Even if you don’t manage to read them all you go away thinking, if I see a book by her I’ll be sure to buy it… and funnily enough I have! Your writing is not too dissimilar to hers in that they both share a relaxed personal style.
Anyway, now I’m beginning to ramble so I’ll stop inconclusively and leave the tangents hanging…
Hi Nick! Thanks for the thoughtful comment. The 250 words post was one way, I thought, that might satisfy the desire to write down what I’m thinking without creating too high a wall to scale, in terms of word count anyway. The QuickPosts category helps with that, but I realized that maybe I could apply more discipline to my general writing. I remember my “Theory of Knowledge” teacher in highschool, Dr. Merchant, tell me that my writing was very interesting but it didn’t really seem to go anywhere. I wonder what he’s up to these days. Oh, where was I? Darn!
It’s funny to be thought of as “well known enough” to relax, being one of a zillion blogs floating out there on the Internet. One thing I try to do is just be myself as much as possible, though every time I post I am also creating, quite by accident, a “1% of Reality Dave”…that’s the idea that a small fraction of the perceived person/thing is taken to be 100% of the person.
David – I hope you aren’t unduly scrupulous about this self-policing – Nick Lo’s comments are right on, and tangents CAN equal opportunities for exploring new lines of thought – Thank you!
Brian: I see your point. What gives rise to the 250 word thought is that I am maybe having more “new lines of thought” than I can realistically follow, and perhaps I can be a bit more mindful about how I do it. It might just have to do with how much time I have; sometimes I write a long post when really, I should be working on something that will make me some cash either directly or indirectly, and therefore allow me to write longer posts :-) Yet, the posts sometimes bring in cash also through a happy accident of surfing, and longer posts can give a better search engine ranking…
Hm, argued myself into a corner.