I'll probably make this short, because its my second post of the day. My first one was for my Twitter link, and it's brief enough to "re-post" here: Thinking that it's unfair that Sveta has to bounce back and play her semi after that Tolstoyan semifinal ending late yesterday afternoon. . .
Yes, I have gone over to the dark side, creating a Twitter account. It's an easy habit/technology to bash, but I tip my hat to a feature that anyone who's worked or played in the on-line writing arena must appreciate - the drastically limited word (character) count to which you must adhere in every "post."
As many of you know, that magic number is 140 characters, and I must say that I got secret thrill when I saw the display on the built-in counter hit 0 exactly as I finished my thought. In the future, I can see timed contests, kind of like poetry slams for the techno-addicted, to see who can write the most elegant or thought-provoking epigram and come closest to making it exactly 140 characters long, in the shortest time.
I've read quite a few Twitter bashing articles recently, but what's to bash (especially with 435,345 characters!)? It's just an Internet-age telegraph, employing a kind of shorthand. Conceptually, it's also a classic, breathtaking example of counter-intuitive genius .Wasn't it just a few years ago that those of us who write on-line were raving about the fact that, unlike newspapers or magazines, you had no deadlines or space (word or character-count) restrictions?
Well, it turns out that no deadlines means you're always on deadline. That was Be Careful What You Wish For realization no. 1. BCWYWF epiphany no. 2 was a recognition or the the danger implicit in the fact that given the option, most writers/journalists will write longer rather than shorter. The one line no newspaper or magazine writer has ever uttered to an editor is, Hmmm, maybe it's only worth 1200 words, not 2000. . .
This isn't just because we ink-stained wretches tend to be self-important windbags, but it's also because most of our careers were were told, time and again, those three dreaded words that are anathema to any budding Melville (which is most young writers): Keep it short.
In fact, here's a tip for any of you budding journalists out there, particularly aspiring magazine writers: Don't ever, ever, exceed your assigned word count by more than 15 or 20 per cent, max., no matter how complicated the story or how "good" you think the material. It's just plain unprofessional.
Will the young generation of today fly to embrace the novel concept of. . . keeping it short? And doesn't this 180-degree turn of mindset speak eloquently of just how much the Internet has transformed the literary landscape?
Guess I didn't make it short.
Enjoy the tennis, everyone.
-- Pete
Note: an Overflow post has been opened as at 16.50 TW time - please use the link below to access it - Rosangel.
Overflow
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