The Process

"Scripto, how do you do it? How do you take a marginally interesting idea and turn it into something almost unreadable?" It isn't easy. The words to make them come out right is hard to sometimes do. In my mind I am a great writer. I am lucid, concise, well reasoned. The narrative flows inexorably and effortlessly towards a well defined conclusion. But all that gets lost somewhere between my brain and my fingers. It's hard to lure the muse back when she left in a huff due to me sitting on my ass watching television for 50 straight years. But I keep plugging away. All the lack of talent in the world can't keep me from not doing what I am incapable of doing. So here's how I do it. It's a little secret I like to call The Process. First I take an idea that I find funny or irritating (or both), say, like, my wife swearing at me on Christmas Eve or Sarah Palin pretending to be my friend. Then I throw words at it until it kinds of sticks to the screen. That is what we authors call "fleshing it out" (a good idea if you are getting paid by the word). Now comes the hard part. Editing. Many times I will go back, reread my post, and discover that it makes no sense whatsoever. Even to me. That's where those handy little fuckers known as punctuation come in. Every blogger has their strengths and weaknesses in this area. Myself, I'm a freakin' genius when it comes to: ', I'm pretty good with: ., not so good with: , but my favorite and the ones I find most handy are these babies here: (). Oftimes (not a word I suggest you use) I'll be meandering (a nice word, don't you think - so peaceful) along, trying to make some point or another, throwing in a comma here or there, when I will think of something somewhat unrelated to the point I'm making (a fragment of a thought or a snotty aside) but I don't want to set it on its own because I'll probably forget it so I wedge it in with these: (). I also use a lot of these: - for the same reason. They are indicators of my unique style and separate me from the other bad bloggers. Proper grammar should not be a consideration. End a sentence with a preposition if you want to. Split infintives, mix declensions; so what, no one hardly cares. It's a LOL world now.
Speaking of style, I've tried a few. Minimalist: Time saver. Lacks development. Dry scientific - borrrrrinnng. So I settled on a style I like to call faux conversationist . Light, breezy, kinda now, kinda Charlie, just the ticket on a hot summer afternoon and a good way to connect me to you. Throw in a bunch of .hyperlinks and a couple of images to distract from the prose and voila!, I be blogging. And you can too.