MORE BETTER FINE
Tuesday Dec. 3, 2013
My wildest best dream would to craft a message, distilled yet fulsome, as Lincoln did in his Gettysburg Address. 150th anniversary of that inspired my effort.
Feedback?
Lots.
Pro and con on my more concise writing adventure.
Less, crafted to be more, could be so much better.
Simple speech, his, 272 magic words, revered by speakers, writers, as pure., simple and powerful.
It isn’t that I can’t write short.
I can.
I tend to write long, much longer than that. Over 10¾ years I’ve done 400-700 words on weekdays, 1,000+ on weekends. Not always, but most often. I write, polish a bit, then publish.
I’ve made many ‘failure to edit and polish thoroughly’ errors. I never professed, or tried really hard, to achieve perfection in editing. Perhaps I could …
Musings has always been ‘post-walk, in-my-belly in my moment thoughts’, written, edited and published as swiftly as I can extract them belly, put them on a page and send them to you.
272 word focus, fascinating challenge. Reminder to not wander so much, not mix themes and subjects so much. To respect precious short time readers are lending to me, spending time reading.
My challenge, write worthwhile for them.
First, it needs to be worthwhile for me.
Can I do that?
Less focus on 272, more concentration to bring big thoughts into tighter focus, bite-size, distill, still, long wandering arguments into a form someone might read, enjoy, debate, discuss, or simply regard for craftsmanship . . .
All those. Will I resume writing longer?
Tomorrow.
More.
Better.
Fine.
More better fine.
Mark Kolke
200,824
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -17C (wind chill -22C) / 2F, blustery and miserable, main streets are plowed, traffic is sparse and moving slow, pedestrians have the good sense to stay indoors and, I expect, a lot of people will work from home today if they can. Welcome to winter!
Comments Received:
Hi Mark, I agree with RT that I do like your longer musings, depending on the idea you are developing. It does allow you to pose questions to yourself and then try to find the answer...writing aloud so to speak, CG, Cobourg, ON
