I'm someone who doesn't plan out my writing when it comes to my blog posts, or as I prefer to call them, my articles. I don't put points down, I don't structure my paragraphs, I don't emphasize on the strength of my vocabulary, and whilst I do put emphasis on grammar, I'm not a grammar Nazi and I break all kinds of rules just to get my voice across. In other words, I'm like a freestyle writer.
Okay, that's not exactly right either, because freestyle has a structure and a method and a technique to it, which I technically don't adopt.
But I don't have a more suitable word for how I write.
Here's the process: I tend to know what it is I want to write about. Meaning that I've got the theme. If it's a discussive article, like plastic bags and loft beds and work stuff etc etc, then that's the theme. But most of the time I have a picture to go on with, and which that becomes the guiding point- since one reason for all this blogging is really to yammer about my life, where I go, what I eat, what I see, blah blah blah. At other times I have a single line, which then becomes the guiding point. So what happens is that when I have one or the other, I simply log on, get onto this page, put my hands on the keyboard and just let the words flow.
Literally.
See, I tend to write the way I speak. In other words, how I write it out is more or less the same way it would sound if I were speaking to you. I don't know whether it is a standard rule for writing to be in a singular, consistent voice- I suppose so- but I haven't taken any course in creative writing so I don't really know, and even if I did, it would feel kind of stifled, since I don't seem to be able to stick to a particular tone, or a particular voice when it comes to the written expression... and which also means that one article might have one voice and another article might have another.
It's a tad confusing at times, I admit, and I've looked at articles stretching from the most recent to those of two years ago and I wonder to myself, did I really write that? And this is after having painstakingly adjusted the tones of my earlier articles! It is worth a special mention, this point. When I first started this blog, I intended to make it sound more day-to-day, more casual, more expressive, have shorter sentences and more local slang and the like, and so I experimented with straight-out thought process with no attempt at sentence structure. It worked for a couple of months. After that there was no way I could read my own writing without gagging, so I decided I'd stick to what I did best. Long winded sentences written out in prose, with casual words that did not require a dictionary and which (I hoped) would still effectively communicate my thoughts to the reader.
To me, writing is very much about the flow, and I suppose I place much more focus on it than anything else, and if it goes as fluidly as it does most of the time- the words and the flow- that's okay.
But it doesn't happen all the time, and when it doesn't happen, I'm f**king stuck.
That's how it has been for the past two weeks. You know the article on the sexy eggs and toast? I took three tries before finally settling on this one. And the article about pasta at Marche? I rewrote the d*** thing like six times before finally getting it right. The article about chicken rice at Boon Tong Kee took four tries. Each time I thought I had the voice and tone right down pat, but after a hiatus, I would reopen the article and then it wouldn't seem right and so I would rewrite again.
Still, nothing beats the time I took to write the one on the Rochor silence. I wanted to write so much stuff about it but nothing rolled the way I wanted them to roll, and so finally, after a whole friggin week and at least ten tries, I gave up. Closed my eyes, took a deep breath, placed my fingers on the keyboard and then wrote it as I thought there and then- no key words at all- which is what you'll read if you read it now.
It feels dumb, frankly, when I'm nearing my 200th article, but that's how it is, and I don't wish to smoke about how fantastic a writer I am. I know I'm not. That's why I don't call myself a writer. But writing, and typing is something that comes naturally to me and so I'll stay with the hobby blogging. It doesn't hurt to be brutally honest that way too. If my tone sounds off, it sounds off. If it sounds abrupt, then it sounds abrupt. If the grammar's shot to hell, so be it. Or if one article has one voice and the other sounds completely different, well, welcome to knowing me just a lil bit better. Cos' I'm like that one. :D
Okay, that's not exactly right either, because freestyle has a structure and a method and a technique to it, which I technically don't adopt.
But I don't have a more suitable word for how I write.
Here's the process: I tend to know what it is I want to write about. Meaning that I've got the theme. If it's a discussive article, like plastic bags and loft beds and work stuff etc etc, then that's the theme. But most of the time I have a picture to go on with, and which that becomes the guiding point- since one reason for all this blogging is really to yammer about my life, where I go, what I eat, what I see, blah blah blah. At other times I have a single line, which then becomes the guiding point. So what happens is that when I have one or the other, I simply log on, get onto this page, put my hands on the keyboard and just let the words flow.
Literally.
See, I tend to write the way I speak. In other words, how I write it out is more or less the same way it would sound if I were speaking to you. I don't know whether it is a standard rule for writing to be in a singular, consistent voice- I suppose so- but I haven't taken any course in creative writing so I don't really know, and even if I did, it would feel kind of stifled, since I don't seem to be able to stick to a particular tone, or a particular voice when it comes to the written expression... and which also means that one article might have one voice and another article might have another.
It's a tad confusing at times, I admit, and I've looked at articles stretching from the most recent to those of two years ago and I wonder to myself, did I really write that? And this is after having painstakingly adjusted the tones of my earlier articles! It is worth a special mention, this point. When I first started this blog, I intended to make it sound more day-to-day, more casual, more expressive, have shorter sentences and more local slang and the like, and so I experimented with straight-out thought process with no attempt at sentence structure. It worked for a couple of months. After that there was no way I could read my own writing without gagging, so I decided I'd stick to what I did best. Long winded sentences written out in prose, with casual words that did not require a dictionary and which (I hoped) would still effectively communicate my thoughts to the reader.
To me, writing is very much about the flow, and I suppose I place much more focus on it than anything else, and if it goes as fluidly as it does most of the time- the words and the flow- that's okay.
But it doesn't happen all the time, and when it doesn't happen, I'm f**king stuck.
That's how it has been for the past two weeks. You know the article on the sexy eggs and toast? I took three tries before finally settling on this one. And the article about pasta at Marche? I rewrote the d*** thing like six times before finally getting it right. The article about chicken rice at Boon Tong Kee took four tries. Each time I thought I had the voice and tone right down pat, but after a hiatus, I would reopen the article and then it wouldn't seem right and so I would rewrite again.
Still, nothing beats the time I took to write the one on the Rochor silence. I wanted to write so much stuff about it but nothing rolled the way I wanted them to roll, and so finally, after a whole friggin week and at least ten tries, I gave up. Closed my eyes, took a deep breath, placed my fingers on the keyboard and then wrote it as I thought there and then- no key words at all- which is what you'll read if you read it now.
It feels dumb, frankly, when I'm nearing my 200th article, but that's how it is, and I don't wish to smoke about how fantastic a writer I am. I know I'm not. That's why I don't call myself a writer. But writing, and typing is something that comes naturally to me and so I'll stay with the hobby blogging. It doesn't hurt to be brutally honest that way too. If my tone sounds off, it sounds off. If it sounds abrupt, then it sounds abrupt. If the grammar's shot to hell, so be it. Or if one article has one voice and the other sounds completely different, well, welcome to knowing me just a lil bit better. Cos' I'm like that one. :D