- How are we going to write? This is rather silly because ideally we should all have the freedom to write however we want. However things are getting rather haphazard and I feel we are slacking and need to write more "professionally". By professional I do not mean to say we should get rid of the personal themes in our writing (for example Faiza's interesting post "The Making of a Masterpiece") for we do draw a lot from day to day life.
- What I am suggesting is more "structure". In the sense that most of the posts are very loosely written with no introduction, body, conclusion (not that I am saying all posts have or should have an introduction, body and conclusion ).This is where how we write comes in. While poetry posts are simple to classify the others seem to be more or less general ramblings or random jottings in the form of (essays, articles?) or notes and posts! Im finding it quite funny that I should be talking of "structure" when I am utterly clueless about the differences (in actual writing not theory) about essays, articles and stories and how any attempt of mine at one transforms into another. But Ive hit upon what I want to say at last: Im simply pleading for more thought, more effort and more craft (even in random jottings). I agree that some of the best blogs are all about general, random and everyday musings, thoughts and ideas but they are also as I wrote before, quite well written and even more well thought out.
- Is our blog something like a journal? Everyday a thousand things go on inside our head. Some of them are things we wish to share. But often they are bare skeletons and need more flesh - posting something in its infancy is not something Im really keen on and would like to ponder over it more and if required read and research more. In short work on that piece of writing for a longer period. However it would be fantastic to have a forum to discuss, brainstorm and thrash ideas out before we finally post something so maybe we should post it anyway but that would create more clutter and less clarity. Maybe we can create two separate heads. Maybe make that three. After a gap of two to three months we could revise/rewrite the post in question including comments, revisions, new ideas, leads and links. What say?
- Speaking of a longer duration to work on the posts I would like to suggest we revise our timetable. Let everyone post something whenever they want. The pressure to post something on a particular day results in half-hearted attempts and half-baked posts to meet the deadline. However lets make it a minimum of three posts per person in a month. But I agree that the weekday concept is good in making us write regularly which after eighteen years I have realized is extremely essential in developing writing skills and hence happens to be extremely difficult to do too. In fact from whatever most authors seem to say writing "daily" and not regularly is the key to success. Still I feel we should maintain pen and paper daily jottings and later pick up particular themes we want to develop and evolve them into posts.
- Returning to the point about "structure". It was essentially to point out that more effort was required and that posting something for the heck of it should not be encouraged. Further, what exactly are our rules on plagiarism? Here I don't want us to go academic with citations and references and the whole nine yards but to me at a glance certain works, particularly the more "informative" article types seemed to be slightly cut,copy,paste (no offence to anyone). Informative works are certainly welcome particularly those that are compilations involving in depth and detailed research and more importantly analysis with multiple perspectives.
- Okay I just realized I sound as always what people call "serious". I have no qualms about that label and do not believe in the compartmentalization of things into spheres called serious and non. Life while not too complicated and complex should not be subject to such simplifications either. So do I wish for "serious" writing when I talk about information, research, analysis and the like? Nope not at all. If you actually look at it you do all that and more even when you write about anything including daily life. There is no earthly reason why people should really give a damn about poverty and climate change and communal riots let alone writers. I am all for every kind of writing from interviews and book reviews to journal like random thoughts and the more typical essays and articles. Stories and poems of course should never be too typical. But as I say again and again let it be well thought out and well written whether it is about something one would call serious or light hearted or whatever.
Looking forward to lots more reading, writing, discussing and revising.
I am trying out my new critique's hat....
ReplyDeleteAfrah- I am very appreciative of the amount of thought that you have put into ways of making this blog a better read.
I have a few points-
Like I said in the beginning this page is for scribbling what ever you want to. I don't think there should be a restriction on the kind of topics that we elaborate upon here. Ofcource I am trusting that the fellow bloggers will use discretion and quality control and dont need any form of check for them to adhere.
The idea of research is good but shall we restrict it to certain topics only since we are not trying to make this an informative page for anybody. If the occasion is such that the post would do better with facts and figures then research would be necessary. The only thing that I can think of as an impediment to researching is lack of time. Spontaneous discussions take lesser amount of time since only one's thoughts need to be ordered.
Right now we are doing four posts a month. The only rule that we had was regular posting so that the others may have something to read everyday. If this is inconvenient then we would need to word out some other pattern of writing. Since in my opinion if all conditions are removed then the things get postponed and eventually will not happen. And the incentive to write regularly would fade a bit.
I completely agree with both Afrah and Sehba on the issue of quality control…but what we must realize is that when someone makes a post they don't necessarily feel that their work is, well, not quite up to the mark. What I'm saying is, for instance, if you do feel that a fellow-bloggers post does lack thought, connectivity or structure- we use the option of commenting on the post to let them know how you feel about it, or what you feel it lacks…Moreover, we do have the option of rating the posts now. I'm certain that all of us would like an honest opinion on our posts and not just 'mutual admiration' and we would certainly appreciate critique and suggestions.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really do like this current 'haphazard' scramble that we have at the moment :D I mean this way it's wonderful to look forward to each day of the week because one day there's a poem that awaits you and another day you may be surprised by that book review… All of us have a different style expressing , so its difficult to compare or judge. I'm certain we'll improve with perseverance, patience and experience. :) We just need to persist!
(Another thing that I feel compelled to mention is that any discussions about the blog or changes that need to be made would be better in the form of emails rather than individual posts on the blog itself)