Friday, May 16, 2008

Fastballs vs. Changeups

No, this has nothing to do with pitching. It's about writing.

I've been a bit slower than usual the past couple of days because I've been working on a book review. I've written four or five of them now, and I find them way harder than blogging. In blogging, all of the exposition you need is supplied by the link, which you can simply put up by itself if you want to or, as is usually the case, block quote to supply the gist.

Writing articles -- or in my case, a book review -- is not the same. Sure, the opinions about the author's style and how successful he was come quickly, but I struggle to supply the paragraphs which, in theory anyway, simply and plainly tell what the book is about (especially when the editor only gives you 750 words). Same thing goes for the articles I used to write back in the Bull Magazine days or for legal publications or what have you.

Chloe Veltman, in her blog, Lies Like Truth, has a nice post today about the difference between blogging and article-writing. They're all pretty much thoughts I've had for a long time, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only blogger struggling with these kinds of issues.

Sorry for the meta/inside post, but I know a lot of you out there are writers yourself, so Veltman's piece may be of interest.

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