Well, since I made this point a few times in my old posts, I might as well restate it for when I delete those posts. My view on this subject hasn't changed, even if the kind of blog I'm running has.
Grammar is a tricky issue, to be sure. A lot of people take great pride in being able to correct other people's mistakes here, often in a sarcastic and borderline rude manner. I won't hide the fact that I've been occasionally guilty of that myself. It doesn't help there are people who really honestly don't even try to be the least bit comprehensible when they communicate via writing.
But that's the key factor, being comprehensible. And most of us can write well enough (side note: it's tempting to say good enough there and see who spots it) to get our point across. At that point, little details like "mixing" up lie and lay, or not putting proper spaces around certain types of punctuation don't really matter.
English is a complex and confusing language as it is, and most of the rules I ignore are the little one-off things that would make anyone trying to learn our language tear their hair out. In fact, there are times a few of the weirder parts make me want to tear mine out. It's what happens when a language that grew out of Germanic roots had a bunch of people impose Latin-based rules on it. (No joke, this is what actually happened.)
This isn't a license to go wild with bad spelling and weird sentences. I'm writing so people can enjoy my stories, which they couldn't do if they can't even figure out what's going on. Even when I deviate from the normal grammar rules, I make a point to be consistent when I do so. So if I'm not putting spaces after an ellipsis, you can bet I'll do that for every ellipsis.
If anyone still objects, fine. I can't stop them. But they can't stop me either; I'll still keep approaching grammar as a set of guidelines instead of rules set in stone. And my stories won't suffer for it.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
A fresh start
Hello, my name is Chris Mitchell, and I'm really bad at updating blogs. (Note the date of the last post before this one.)
With that said, 2016 is underway, and I've decided that it's time for a fresh start. With it comes a new approach to blogging, one I hope more people will appreciate.
Looking back at a lot of my old posts, it's almost embarrassing how I kept trying to shoehorn in bad jokes and the like, while tending to be too brief about topics. Part of it was trying to run this blog while avoiding being too controversial or revealing too much about myself, which is a really dumb idea when you're trying to run a blog. I feel like I could have done so much better, and put much more time into this whole thing.
So, here's what I am doing. I plan on effectively rebooting this blog, by going in there in a few weeks and deleting all my old, poorly done posts. This post will be the first step of a new approach, where I try to be much more thoughtful about what I say here.
But I decided that there was so much more I wanted to talk about; and that this blog wasn't quite enough to do it. So, as you can see in the sidebar, there is a link to a second blog, one devoted specifically towards video games. You can click on and read more there about what I plan to do with that blog.
I will be updating both blogs simultaneously, although this one may not get too much attention. I'm leaning towards a couple of posts a month here; just enough to keep you up to date on my writing and my views on the writing scene. It'll be more along the lines of when I feel up to it.
That said, I am now on Twitter (a link is in the sidebar), so it should be easy enough for you to follow me and see when I post, both here and on the other blog. This hopefully will allow more readers an easier time to keep track of me, and make it easier for me to keep track of things I'm interested in. It's a win-win all around.
So, anyway, here's to a new journey, a new start, and hopefully a lot better than I've done before. No more flip side jokes to finish off my posts; just enjoy yourselves, and I'll see you all around.
With that said, 2016 is underway, and I've decided that it's time for a fresh start. With it comes a new approach to blogging, one I hope more people will appreciate.
Looking back at a lot of my old posts, it's almost embarrassing how I kept trying to shoehorn in bad jokes and the like, while tending to be too brief about topics. Part of it was trying to run this blog while avoiding being too controversial or revealing too much about myself, which is a really dumb idea when you're trying to run a blog. I feel like I could have done so much better, and put much more time into this whole thing.
So, here's what I am doing. I plan on effectively rebooting this blog, by going in there in a few weeks and deleting all my old, poorly done posts. This post will be the first step of a new approach, where I try to be much more thoughtful about what I say here.
But I decided that there was so much more I wanted to talk about; and that this blog wasn't quite enough to do it. So, as you can see in the sidebar, there is a link to a second blog, one devoted specifically towards video games. You can click on and read more there about what I plan to do with that blog.
I will be updating both blogs simultaneously, although this one may not get too much attention. I'm leaning towards a couple of posts a month here; just enough to keep you up to date on my writing and my views on the writing scene. It'll be more along the lines of when I feel up to it.
That said, I am now on Twitter (a link is in the sidebar), so it should be easy enough for you to follow me and see when I post, both here and on the other blog. This hopefully will allow more readers an easier time to keep track of me, and make it easier for me to keep track of things I'm interested in. It's a win-win all around.
So, anyway, here's to a new journey, a new start, and hopefully a lot better than I've done before. No more flip side jokes to finish off my posts; just enjoy yourselves, and I'll see you all around.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)