Write Right

Appreciative readers have asked me how I am able to effectively channel my thoughts and feelings through writing. I’m not really sure if I’m the right person to do this article..I mean, I’m just a guy who has an opinion about everything, as you may have noticed.

I’ll give you a short background on what’s been going on. There is this one blogger who posted something in the forum that, for lack of a better term–launches a campaign (so to speak) to purge jologs (ghetto) blog entries off the blogosphere. he was criticizing (if not making fun of) other bloggers’ sub-standard styles of writing, such as:

- poor subject-verb agreement.

- overuse of ellipses, exclamation points and other punctuation marks to convey a strong emotion

- overkill by using hifaluting words

- incoherent entries

- text/tweetums lingo

He did stress that he was ranting about the entries, and not the authors.

Of course, being the bitter bastard that I am, I replied to that post. 

I meant what I said in my reply. I’m not saying that I enjoy reading such crappy entries because I don’t; but I just do not find the need to actually reject these entries. You get good ones, you get bad ones–fact of life. Get over it.

The sad thing is, there are some who are quite boolean when it comes to writing so they tend to misuse ellipses and exclamation points and subject-verb agreements.

Harder words=deeper meaning is not always true. Longer ellipses=more dramatic is stupid, and English=better is crap. There is no formula. Whatever the style, it should allow me to express a message or convey a thought in the exact way that I want people to understand. Anything less defeats the purpose of why I blog.

If I can express myself better in Filipino, I don’t need to force myself to write in English, unless I am expecting foreign readers. Andaming sayang na entries dahil lang pinilit mag English.

I use an ellipsis (…) with three dots if there’s a continuation, and four dots if I’m going to use it to end my sentenc (for the buntunghininga-sabay-tingin-sa-malayo effect)

I use hifaluting words only when the need calls for it–that is to say, there is no simpler way of saying it. Not even I would read this blog had the title been The Predisnonic Bastard. The real genius will have a very hard time to conceal his brilliance. So if I’m really smart, it will show, whether I like it or not.

People contract words in text messages because they are charged for every message they send. If my blog has a limit as to the length of your entry, den n0 1 cn st0p me f i ryt lyk dis.

If I am writing an essay, I know that my message is clear if I can paraphrase each paragraph into just one sentence. If I can’t do this, that means I don’t understand what I’m trying to say, either, so let alone the readers.

And best of all, I know when to break the rules.

The blogger’s style can be explained by knowing what the real purpose of that blog is in the first place. Some people make online diaries. Some use blogs as shock absorbers, some people write to sell things, others would like to have their reviews heard, some just to make readers laugh, and some others would blog just to impress other people and get noticed. If the style suits his purpose, I’m cool with that. People do things for two different reasons: a good reason, and a real reason.

Putting this into perspective, I can’t help but question the Anti-jologs author’s real purpose with that blog entry. He did say that he’s attacking the entries, and not the authors, but then in the forum, he was very explicit to stop the Jologs. While his arguments cannot be denied (the cool term for this is incontrovertible), I am not convinced that he just wants to rant the hell out of his blog. I am under the impression that he knew exactly how his readers would react to his very rude entry, and is taking advantage of it. The best way to get noticed is to start a disturbance.He may have succeeded at the expense of all he insulted. Effective, but cheap. So I will not post the link to that blog in this site. I will not condone mediocrity in my blogosphere.

Am I attacking the author? Let me think.

YES.

I am attacking him and all the others who think too highly of themselves who ridicule other people’s effort and skill para masabing magaling sila.

Oh, in case you didn’t ask, this was my reply to the forum:

jologs ang abstract painting nung panahon ni vincent van gogh.para sakin, ok lang maging jologs sa simula. hindi naman lahat magaling agad magexpress ng nararamdaman. sa pagbabasa nila ng mga blogs ninyong mga beterano, matututo din yan na iwasan yung mga bad habits. pero kung icocondemn sila just because they do not satisfy some authority’s standards, sa tingin ko pinagkait natin sa kanila ang potensyal nilang gumaling. let’s inspire them to improve by reminding them what their real purpose in writing is all about.
there’s no shortage of talent. there’s only a lack of talent that can recognize talent. give the noobs a chance.

So…why do YOU blog? If you’re still trying to find out, then just keep on writing. The clearer your purpose is to you, the more powerful your masterpieces are going to be. It will take more than an attention whore to bring us down.