Category: Writing

There’s some form of mystic associated with writing professionally that, in some ways, I don’t understand.

It doesn’t exist with, say, web development — there are scores of web page designers and developers who would be appalled at having to do what they do as a hobby, as a job, day in and day out. In addition, there are those who garden, cook, drive, sew and care for children who wouldn’t even consider doing the same for a buck.

But writing, well, writing professionally somehow imbues the written word with a higher degree of importance than the word that’s given freely. Even if the written word is included in the biggest jumble of disorganized crap that ever existed on any planet in the universe, and the freely given word is the epitome of elegance, grace, and clarity.

Perhaps the reason for this mystic is that if one is paid for the word, one is somehow supposed to be more proficient with the use of the word. I write this word — apple — and I am not paid for it. Therefore, the value of –apple — is worth less than the word — Apple — as long as it is followed by OS X and I’ve convinced some editor somewhere that it is worthy of inclusion within their magazine, eZine, book, or other forms of publication.

It is true that when one is paid for an act, one improves over time. Based on this we can conclude that when we pay for an action, we should be able to expect more from that action. This works for sex — why not writing?

The act of writing professionally. The publication process.

As an example of the publication process, take a look at the following sentence:

My recommendation would be that you flibit the gidbet and then flummer the dummer.

One publication prefers that writers not use the familiar, so can the professional writer remove all familiar references?

Okay, how’s this:

It is accepted practice to flibit the gidget and then flummer the dummer.

Another publication prefers the familiar form, and also prefers witty repartee with the reader. Can the professional writer please adjust accordingly?

Okay, how’s this:

My recommendation would be that you flibit the gidbet and then flummer the dummer, and you’ll be kicking ass at that point.

A third publication hastens to add that words such as “ass” might be offensive to some readers. Please edit this remark.

Okay. Is the following acceptable:

My recommendation would be that you flibit the gidbet and then flummer the dummer, and you’ll be much happier with the results.

There’s another publication. This one likes to have notes, sidebars, and annotations.

Okay. Then how the hell is this:

My recommendation (being aware that I have enormous experience with this) would be that you flibit the gidbet (see www.gidbet.com for more info) and then flummer the dummer, (see sidebar A1), and you’ll be happier with the results (happier: increased sense of well being).

Are these examples of writing somehow worth more than the unpaid version of the same, such as one could find at a weblog?

Weblog version:

To hell with the gidbet, who cares about the flummer, go get a beer, and screw it all until tomorrow.

I think not.

(Legal Disclaimer: The publications referred to in this document are entirely fictional. Any similarity to an existing publication is purely coincidental.)

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I just had to fix several images for the Essential Blogging book. There was a typo in several of the screenshots – I used “weblob” rather than “weblog”.

It would be funny, but after a while, I get tired of mistakes. I get tired of using the wrong word, but one that’s phonetically similar. I get tired of misspellings. I get tired of not being able to type “wierd” without error even after months of trying to train myself to spell it correctly.

I get tired of the embarrassement.

I typed a comment in a weblog once that had to do with President Bush and the so-called “choking incident” that happened a few months back. Except I used “chocking”. My typo generated a lot of joking. Not the nice, gentle jokes and teasing that I usually get with my regular weblog visitors (all of you). Nasty, demeaning stuff. Needless to say, I never went back to that weblog.

To add to the problem, my keyboard is going bad on my laptop and my SHIFT, CTRL, ALT and several other keys aren’t working properly.

Typos and keyboard problems. And stress because of the move – stress makes things worse. I’ve actually written some emails that were completely illegible though they passed all spellchecks. Why weren’t they legible? Because when I’m overworked, when I’m stressed, I use weird (did I spell it correctly that time?) words in place of the intended ones. Perfectly good words used absolutely incorrectly.

Reading’s a problem at times, too. The Unix Power Tools book is based in SGML rather than Word. I didn’t know it was going to be SGML-based or I would not have taken it on. I can read XML, HTML, and so on, but not when there’s extensive use of what I call disruptive markup (contained within the text rather than surrounding it) and named entities. These things disrupt my reading, make it difficult for me to “see” the words. Long web pages do this also – anything longer than the width we tend to use for our weblogs.

Don’t get me wrong. I can read books, magazines, content in Microsoft Word, standard text editors, PDF files much faster than normal (last time I was tested, I checked out at over 2000 words a minute). But new environments make me extremely uncomfortable until I “train” myself with them.

So I use “vi” or Notepad instead of sophisticated development environments because I’m comfortable with these simpler tools.

I don’t play games because they frustrate me. I can’t play chess. Computerized tests scare me to death. Math has always been a challenge. However, these things don’t bother me that much. Well, not too much.

But I love to write. It probably means more to me than anything else in the world. I live for my writing.

And it’s hell being a writer when you have Dyslexia.