« finally figuring out what I was trying to say...I think. | Main | "Two end tables, two arc lamps, a purse, and a satin jumper" »

February 11, 2004

cribbing from my daily correspondence, to feed the maw of the weblog....

I write all day long. e-mailing and IM-ing friends and family, re-writing content and editing book summaries for clients, mostly. I've noticed, with all the various formats, that virtual limits, from pentameter to character quotas, can open up communication possibilities where an open page and a limitless topic can stifle the creative spirit. From the 150-character text messages I send from my phone on the train to the 400-word 'summaries' of books filled with impossible technological drivel that I chug out for work, from the butcher paper on the wall in the coffee room with the shelf of tempting glitter pens to the ugly beige personal-ad box, these limits paradoxically stretch my communication style in dozens of tiny little ways, from the thrill of dotting the i's with little squares (a la the fourth grade) to sparking hidden snark in an over worded departmental e-mail (may I suggest exchanging your compound "labyrinth-like" for the more concise, "labyrinthine", in paragraphs seven through forty-nine in your client proposal?) to, even, the naughty blowjob reference in a mostly - clean e-mail to friends (tax-paying usually finds me...on my knees, without even a pat on the head for a job well done....)

and no, I don't have an editor here to force me to avoid misusing punctuation in order to construct enormously long run-on-sentences....

perhaps one can find solace in open fields of white paper and crisp fences of pointy pencils, people too much time to think of what they want to say and how they want to say it...perhaps i need to set more boundaries of my own and see where they take me - why not choose an archaic meter in which to compose your voice mail messages?

I think that's exactly what I'll do tomorrow - find an encyclopedia of writing schemes to further limit my correspondence ...see how far I can go tomorrow in iambic hexameter....

Posted by Heather at February 11, 2004 09:52 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.picturepicture.net/cgi-bin/mt/mtb.cgi/191