I write a lot.

I'm doing a ton of writing lately. I'm not sure if it's helping improve my style or not... but it's a lot of writing! Here's where and what I'm writing:

1. Our family and parenting blog - of course, I do daily (sometimes more) posts on A Year With Mom and Dad - product reviews, personal posts, etc. This keeps me pretty busy!
2. Sometimes I get paid post opportunities that don't really fit our family blog but, it's nice to get paid for writing, so I put them on my alternate product review blog.
3. Our gardening blog - every once in awhile I think of something to say at Once Upon a Garden
4. Here - lately I've been writing about the modern style of writing that blogging has produced.
5. Guest posting - I am working on some guest posts for other blogs. And I'll be starting to do some product reviews here soon.
6. Freelance writing - I do some occasional online writing for Avon MotoPhoto and will be helping them out with their company blog soon! (If you have a small business that needs some copy writing, just email me!).
7. Bible Adventure Club - I write the character stories for our church's kid program on Wednesday night. Tales of the Wild West and Uncle Jed! This is my most fun writing!

Sort of writing stuff:
I applied to be a writing instructor at Brave Writer - I will find out if they accepted my application in a week or so. That may not really mean I'll be writing more, but I'll be more involved in the work of writing.

So, wow, I've been doing a lot of writing. I wish I did more creative writing. But I'm glad that I'm keeping the writing going in any genre, and I'll weave in the creative pieces from time to time too!

Do you write? Where do you write?

If Shakespeare Blogged...

Blogging is such an infant genre. It's changing the way we write. What we write about. Our audience. And the way we interact with our readers.

I got to wondering what would've happened if some well-known authors had blogs. Here's what I surmise:

Victor Hugo: Would've lost his audience with his intricate sentences and terribly long paragraphs. Not to mention that he could stay on one topic for about sixty pages (see description of Paris in The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Blogging would not be a good genre for him.

T.S. Eliot: Would've never gotten any Google page rank, due to having far too many outbound links on his home page. You know, the footnotes and all. But probably would've found a niche audience regardless.

Shakespeare: Now here's a blogger waiting to happen. He would've broken his posts up into acts. He would've created his own Memes like "Soliloquy Saturdays" and "Sonnet Sundays." Perhaps "Tragic Post Thursday. And who would dare leave a snarky comment on his posts? Because he's the insult and comeback king!

J. R. R. Tolkien: Blogger spell check would not tolerate his penchant for using Elfin languages and made-up words. Samwise Gamgee? Frodo? Golum? There would be red squiggle lines underneath every other word, and Tolkien would spend his time clicking "ignore word" over and over. (same for e. e. cummings).

Thoreau: Might have been a good nature blogger, but probably wouldn't have an internet connection where he lived.

Samuel Johnson: Would get the most pingbacks as other bloggers would quote his posts extensively.

Jane Austen: Would've had a dating and relationships advice blog.

These are just the ones that popped in my head...

What do you think other authors' blogs might have looked like?



Strike That! Another Bit of Blog Grammar

Have you noticed the latest trend in online writing? The strike through.

Right. Like when you're drafting and realize you have a better way to say what you already wrote. So you strike through a portion of your draft and write a new phrase or sentence.

These drafts used to end up crumbled in so many piles around a garbage can. But lately, the strike through has become a way of writing. Not a way of masking drafting a writer's initial thoughts, but a way of expanding on a thought. The purposeful strike through.

The author wants you to see the sarcastic, humorous, original thought first written. It's a feint. A way of making the reader privy to the author's truest thoughts, so true and deep the author considers striking them from the record.

But no. Because there they are, clearly visible through the strike through. And plainly the author wants the world to read the strike through.

It's quite effective for adding interest. Can come off as humorous, the author's way of illuminating their real thoughts, or showing how they tempered an initial reaction. But not-so-subtly letting the reader know there is more to the story.

I find it a novelty. A mix of typographical element and verbiage. I have not mastered the use of this burgeoning trend yet, but waiting my moment for when I can employ it to greatest effect. Rough drafting may never be the same again!

Do you use the strike through effect often in your own writing? What do you think of this trend? Love it / Hate it? Is it here to stay? Passing through?