writing — Page 2

Good news on the ‘feeling poorly” front: I am feeling much better today. Still a bit puny, but much better than earlier this weekend. Clearly, I had some sort of bug. Yesterday morning, I thought I’d never stop sweating…I had to throw my pajamas in the wash for the second day in a row. But by mid-afternoon, that had finally stopped. I managed to make mashed potatoes last night, but that finished off all my remaining energy for the day. Tired this morning, still a bit wimbly (Don’s favorite word for this kind of thing) but feeling like I’m slowly crawling out of the muck.

Don’t worry. I’ll take it easy today.

I have entitled this: The Un-Pin Worthy Photo.

But it’s real life. There are photos on this blog of my fabulous Vernor’s crate and Riley’s Dish Garden that are Pin Worthy. But this, my friends, this is the way this table is ninety percent of the time.

Likewise this:

A picture of the house shot at an overly sunny moment in the day. But if we back up a bit, we get this:

The chimney wrapped in a blue tarp, which has been there for several months and will continue to be there until we can save the money to get the masonry re-done. (That’s what was causing the leak in our bedroom.)

Un-Pin Worthy. And, often, Un-Blog Worthy. But you know what? The more I read blogs (and I’ve been reading them for about 7 or 8 years) the less interested I am in always seeing pretty pictures. Don’t get me wrong, I love a pretty picture as much as the next person and I like to take pretty pictures. But what draws me to a blog for the long run is substance. Stories. Real life. Adventures. Not just beautifully dressed children looking as if they popped out of a catalog. Or beautiful photos of the blog author looking like she stepped out of a catalog. Or, most often, beautiful photos of living spaces with nothing out of place that look like a magazine spread. Every once in a while? Sure! We all like to put on our best dress or show off our living spaces. I’ve done it here. Although, to be perfectly honest, every photo like that on this blog has something out of place. Or several things out of place. (I can’t help it.)

I just prefer the real. I like to know the person behind the blog. I like to see real life. That’s what keeps me coming back for more because pretty only does it for a short while. Then my eyes glaze over. You can show me pretty, but give me some substantive text and you’ve got me.

But, of course, there are all sorts of blogs out there and some of them are meant to be full of pretty pictures, are meant to look like magazine spreads, and more power to them. I’ve been known to while away 3 or 4 hours gazing at those photos. Those blogs are a nice little escape from real life and we all need that. They are the equivalent of what a magazine used to be for all of us.

‘Pinterest Worthy’ is nice, but it isn’t always real. And it’s easy to fall into that trap and feel less than worthy yourself because your table is piled high with mail and your garden has weeds and your bed is unmade and there is laundry to be done and no one has cleaned up the kitchen yet.

Hey, I’m not about to show you all the ‘real’ in my house…you don’t need to be privy to everything that goes on here! But I will try to show you as much of it as I can. Just so you know that all the pretty flower pictures (and that’s Mother Nature’s doing, not mine) are well and good, but we have a big old tree that fell in the back forty and we have poison ivy growing up several trees and there is a dead tree in the front yard and I’m overdue on weeding again and the Japanese Beetles decimated my roses. And the shot of the Vernor’s crate that was momentarily styled and free of clutter is a rarity. And the paint on my kitchen cupboards is chipping and they need cleaning and there is dog hair everywhere and every wall in this house needs painting.

That’s my real and imperfect life here at the cottage.

(New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.)

Happy Monday.

Some more thoughts (my own, of course):

I’ve been thinking about language and the written and spoken word since yesterday’s post. Writing about a consistently misspelled word can apparently push some buttons. But we are in an age that is increasingly high-tech – where some school children are no longer being taught cursive writing, where ‘text speak’ uses abbreviations and parts of words, where students graduating from high school and college do not have a command of the language and have few writing skills. I see it everywhere and it makes me sad.

I’m a stickler for correct spelling and I make no apologies for it. I’ve been known to go back to an old post here on this blog and correct a typo. Brenda and I routinely alert each other to errors in our posts. I’m grateful. I want to know. I used to be an excellent speller but I find as I get older, I’m not always sure of the spelling of certain words. So I look them up. Don often asks me how to spell a word. I ask him. Why wouldn’t we want to spell the word correctly? Not knowing the correct way to spell a word is no reflection on our intelligence. There are a lot of words in existence and knowing how to spell them all is next to impossible.

I think the written word matters. What is seen on a page or on a computer screen matters. And once it’s published, it’s out there.

I don’t text that often but when I do, it takes me longer because I don’t abbreviate. I don’t use LOL, U instead of you or R instead of are. I just can’t. I’ve tried, but it’s like wearing clothing that just doesn’t suit me. It doesn’t fit. (I’m not saying it’s wrong to use those abbreviations, mind you, just not for me.)

As for blogging, I tend to write my blog posts the way I speak. So sometimes, by choice, I stretch the boundaries of good grammar. That’s a style choice. Every blogger has his/her own writing style and that’s as it should be.

But, oh, do I edit. Because this blog is a reflection of me and what I value. And I want it to be well written with no misspelled words.

That’s also why I do book reviews. Writers spend years writing a book; carefully choosing each word, editing and re-editing. I want to honor their written words, especially those that are on an actual page, in a book I can hold in my hands. eReaders can be wonderful tools (I have one, though I only use it when I travel) but I feel increasingly compelled to champion three dimensional books. Independent Bookstores are going out of business. The biggest sellers for Amazon and Barnes & Noble? eBooks. On the one hand, if eBooks keep people reading, more power to them. And the smallish eBooks many bloggers are writing – full of how-to advice – are great. But if someday I get a book of fiction published – oh my gosh, I would want it to be in an old-fashioned, real, not virtual, book that I can hold in my hands and display on my bookshelf. The carefully edited words imprinted on a page, the page corners that can be turned to mark a place – oh, heaven! That must be the same feeling the authors whose books I review have when they first see their books in print. Because words matter.

My work in the theater involves the written word. I’m working on another Shakespeare play right now, in fact. Did you know that Shakespeare invented many words that we routinely use today? There are many languages in this world of ours, but the one I can speak and write is English. It’s a beautiful language that has been used to inspire, incite, woo, preach and tell a great story. It enables us to communicate all the big and little things we feel.

Let me add: I am as guilty as the next person of sometimes using incorrect grammar and not expressing myself as well as I’d like to. And I miss the occasional misspelled word. But writing is an ongoing learning experience, isn’t it? I sure have learned a lot in the course of my almost 4 years of blogging and I hope to learn more.

The end to a year is a time for reflection, for pondering. I’m pondering the power of the written word as I head toward 2012. Maybe that will be my word for 2012: Write (better.)

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Real Life: The Un-Pin Worthy

Words

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Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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