Laziness & Inaction

I think maybe I’m being a little hard on myself, considering all of the stress and pressure I’m experiencing currently.  I’ve got a lot of work-related testing going on, and we’re moving soon, and there is still a lot to do before I leave in about two weeks.

I just don’t know if I can accept that as excuse enough for all of the writing time I’ve been wasting.  Alright, maybe most of it hasn’t been downright wasted, but I don’t feel that I’ve been doing enough to keep it productive.  I’ve used parts of it to read (which is valid, by my rules), but I’ve also been cutting corners off to get a few extra minutes of sleep in, or ending a little early to spend more time with my wife (we’ll be apart for about four months when I leave in a couple weeks).  I just don’t feel that the discipline has been there.

Regardless, perhaps I feel the worst of it because I have very little to show for the time I’ve spent writing over the last week or so.  How many short stories have I finished?  None.  How many times have I contributed anything worthwhile to a piece I’ve been working on?  Maybe once, if that.

I suppose, though, that I should just put all of that behind me and move forward.  I am here now, after all, writing.  I do have a little something I wanted to write about too, so I guess I can save my breath and quit being so hard on myself.

I read an article recently about an issue that had been nagging at me for years.  Sadly, I can’t say I’ve done much to be part of the solution, and at times I might even be part of the problem.  Although, for my part I do feel that I make a steady personal effort to avoid directly throwing my own fuel onto the fire.

The issue is the lack of professional training among bloggers.  In my eyes this issue has two levels (but the article only deals with one of them).  The first part, and the one discussed in the article, is that bloggers are not generally professional, trained journalists, yet that is the role they play in society.  Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to major problems for them, their audiences or their subjects of discussion.  They inadvertently infringe on copyrights, defame others (resulting in lawsuits) and even get in trouble for violating privacy laws.

The article I read discusses a recent movement in the blogging community toward a position between amateur and professional.  As far as presenting content and avoiding lawsuits, I think this is a wonderful idea and a relieving trend.

In my opinion, this problem is less annoying than the second level of the blogging issue.  Personally, I can deal with people getting upset at what I write.  My issue has to do with grammar and style.

That’s right, I’m more bothered by bloggers who write without capitalizing any of their letters, or use “z” instead of “s” or shorten words unnecessarily, or anything else of the like.  Not that I don’t sometimes enjoy their content.  The lolcats blog is a good example.  Their content can sometimes be amusing, but only if you don’t mind having your brain beat to a pulp by the intentionally horrendous and trendy spelling.  Frankly, I would enjoy the site more readily if the content weren’t so horribly mutilated by misspellings.  I understand that, for some, the misspellings are part of the cuteness and appeal.  I have a suggestion for such people who find this entertaining – use a marker or crayon to rewrite the photo captions however you like them (mispelled or not) directly on your computer monitor.

Misspellings have always bothered me, as has blatantly poor grammar.  I know that my own spelling and grammar are far from perfect, but I continue to make an effort to do well in what I know and learn what I do not know well.  If I can tell other writers or bloggers are making a similar effort, I am not put off by a misspelling or gramatical error.  I get irritated when I can tell that absolutely zero effort was put into writing something in the correct manner, or when an effort was made to deliberately avoid spelling or writing something correctly.  When I see such shenanigans I do not think they are cute, entertaining or clever.  I think they are annoying, degrading to the author, and extremely frustrating to read.  When I see more than one in the first few lines (or sometimes even paragraphs) of text I immediately stop reading.

Enough ranting about the Internet community.  There were other things I wanted to share and write about, but I shall have to save them for another time.  I am tired and ready to fall asleep at the keyboard.  To avoid drooling on my computer equipment, I will retire to my bed.