Friday, November 12, 2010

Are Part of Being Young

Editing comes naturally to me.

I have a friend (I call her a friend), whose blog I started reading a while ago. Her blog is different than mine, and I'm sure it appeals more broadly. She allows for variances from the rules of writing; hers is more of a stream of consciousness flow, conversational in its manner. She writes while her emotions are still raw and powerful, and I would not be surprised to hear that her keyboard was wet from her own tears at the end of more than a few of them.

Without realizing how damaging this could be, I reflexively critiqued her writing, from placement of punctuation to spelling errors, typos and verb agreement, and so on. I didn't mean to offend her, and luckily, she knew that I intended no such thing. She politely notified me that she didn't think she wanted my help, and it was then I realized that I had been essentially editing her diary or journal.

Her thoughts, her feelings...shared with the internet, but still her emotions, laid bare. I had run roughshod over them, because while I was reading, my eyes would stumble over misused grammar, and it jarred me away from the perfect immersion of her story. I wanted everyone who read it to experience her weavings without interruption, and I had tried to change it to fit my view of what it should (or should not) be.

This revelation made me think about my friends (I call them my friends), and how we approach writing our blogs. Some write their blogs like journalists. They are art critics and sports beat writers, political strategists and foodies. Starting with a play or a plan or a plate, they explore each part of it with their words. Others still are travelers, whose blogs are a place to record what they experience on their journeys, so we might see the world through their eyes.

My writings? These are my essays, awaiting publication; my arguments, prepared to face attack; and my speeches, searching for the right audience. Each word is carefully chosen, every connotation is weighed carefully against the others. Even my mother tells me that my thoughts appear to have "boiled" for a while before I couch them here. I strive to be thought-provoking. The written word is more to me than just a tool to convey thoughts. It's the medium in which I choose to frame my existence.

An apology to my friend (I call her my friend) for trying to edit her soul from her blog.

Until another time,
Salt

1 comment:

  1. On the flip side, I love your editing help. I'm a terrible editor so I let you do the work for me. :-)

    ReplyDelete

1. I will not permit personal attacks against me, or any other human being.
2. I will not allow profanity.
3. I will mock poor grammar/spelling, and will encourage others to do so. It's an English blog, not a "netspeak" blog.