On Writing Style

http://www.sadlyno.com The author of Sadly No, who for the sake of convenience I will assume is a male, writes in a clever way. Actually, it's more his line of thinking than his style that is clever. He is someone who has a penchant for pointing out lies in the media, and he has a talent for sniffing out one. That seems to be the idea his whole blog is based on, the title of which serves as a recurring catchphrase and stands to mean: "Is that statement we heard true? Sadly, No!"

I like his July 4, 2003 post entitled "They're all liars -- all of them!" It's aimed at pointing out the false claim by Rush Limbaugh that Hillary Clinton was lying about how many copies of her book "Living History" have been sold in the first few days. He claims it takes around six months to know the approximate sales numbers, so at that point in time she could not have known the figures.

The author of Sadly No proves his point in a very elegant and poised way. He does not go on smudging Limbaugh's credibility or taunting him. He recalls or researches that Limbaugh published a book in 1993, and he goes after the facts: he finds out that he went on boasting about his unprecedented early sales just one month after the book had come out. Simply juxtaposing this fact with Limbaugh's present allegations is a powerful rhetoric. There's no mud slinging in his blog. He operates with facts - very clever facts. That's the trademark of his style.

Later on in his blog we also find more sarcastic and bluntly anti-Christian sounding posts, but what never changes is his placing himself in a position of infallibility to dispense what he believes to be the truth about allegations made by public figures.

CT Bloggers

I checked out Coffey0072 (http://www.coffeerhetoric.blogspot.com), one of our CT bloggers and found she is a really apt and eloquent writer, who mostly makes comments about her personal life, often her love life, and shares her musings about hooking up and relationships with her readers. Actually, many of these pieces seem quite lengthy for a blog. I could imagine her musings as articles in Cosmo, for example. Her vocabulary is very sophisticated, and she seems to occasionally write for some magazine, too.

She seems analytic about herself: "I am the quintessial shit talker and most of the time it's justified. I'm direct and I'm honest, but I'm also guarded and leery. She knows exactly what her blog will be like, and she's also quite confident about the value of her writing, perhaps less surprising if we consider that she has written for a longer time now, thus had time to develop her style and maybe get some feedback from friends: "I think now that I am ready to make the web masses privy what goes on in my head. All of it is worthwhile and thought provoking. Some of it might be a little profane and perverse. My mind run 'round and 'round liek a colorful mobius strip... none of the geometrical shapes ever really making any sense, but it's good shit nevertheless! ... Fasten your seatbelts. This voyage inside my head may be turbulent, but it will be funnier than hell!"

I figure it will always be the escribitionists, that is the online diarists whose blogs I will enjoy reading most. I've been keeping mine for a month now, and just began wondering why I am really doing it and what I want to get out of it. That's why I took interest in reading what Coffey0072 has to say about her motives. She explains her drive in a lengthy explanation that is to start off her blog.

She's journaled extensively for some time writing about "people I hate, people who get on my nerves, how much sex I'd like to be having, crazy dreams I've had, etc etc." I am surprised that what she writes in her blog is kind of the same. I imagine people keep a personal diary to keep track either of their everyday lives or their spiritual lives. Her blog is neither, she wants to entertain herself and now her readers, and she seems to take it as a literary experiment: "This is one of the literary forms that I enjoy partaking in the most." But also, blog journaling is liberating to her, "like taking a massive shit. You feel a sense of relief  ... Journaling allows you to expend that feeling.... the anger, the lust, the happiness, the joy etc etc. You can fucking trash people without having to deal with the drama you'd be bothered with, if you were to curse someone to their face."

But can't that all be gotten rid of in a private journal? I think no, because having an audience listen to what she has to say is different. Writing for an audience your prime purpose is to entertain, to give something valuable to them. Almost one year later, having an established circle of readers, she suggests the importance of sharing and having an audience: Firstly, I must oblige by thanking the core group of people who read my blog semi-regularly. I started blogging not because I wanted 30 or more comments on my page, but because, it is a way for me to just write when I hit a creative writing snag. I was told by a writing professor that the best way to get through writer's block is to write. Initially, I would just write in your standard private journal, but in going back and reading some of the things I wrote, some of the people and sets of circumstances I encountered, I would snicker... actually wanting to share some of my dirty laundry

I believe blog journallers appreciate having an audience, because they enable them to break out from isolation, and transform their life to be viewed as interesting through an act of publishing it. Having no one ever read and comment on your blog, on your life, you're a failure as a blogger. Maybe I'm taking this too far, but I sometimes think that an online diarist needs a faithful, interested audience to help them believe their life is worthwhile and unique, they need people who care about them. Coffey0072 confides that: "... while my goal is not to be the most popular blogger- and I am thrilled that people have actually discovered it and have left their feedback- I have stumbled upon this great community of like-minds, and you all have been gracious enough to show interest in the trials, travails, and tribulations known as my life. Thanks. I love your blogs in return. May blogs be the 21th century tool of fighting alienation for some?

Pros-turned-bloggers

James Wolcott was "a columnist on media and pop culture for publications such as Esquire, Harper's, and New York magazine", and is presently a Vanity Fair contributing editor [http://jameswolcott.com]. He turned a blogger in September 2004, with an in medias res start - making no overt references to clarify why he starts this blog, what his purpose is or who he thinks his audience might be. His opening post on September 2, 2004 centers around Zell Miller's speech to the Republican National Convention the previous night. It's as if he was suggesting that: "I am an acknowledged, widely recognized commentator of American politics and public life, and I doubt that there is anyone in this country as naive as to believe I would write about anything else but what I always write about."

There is hardly any trace of personal sidecomments about his life or meta-musings about his newly found medium and his writing. Wolcott's blog is not a fan site, but rather remains strictly within the domain of journalistic commentary. I have the hunch that he does not consider this new medium a source to refreshen his own writing, but simply an eighth tentacle to reach out to the avid readers of his columns in the print media. "Anyone needs more of me? Go online and read my blog!" His opionion posts look disorganized, which further confirms my impression that it is meant to be an extension of his columns, for readers who are already familar with the backgrounds of events, and are just looking for additional opinions.

In closing, let me just say that it was quite difficult for me to understand what he is writing about in his blog. Jane Hamsher, Peter Fitzgerald, Scooter, Rover Boy, Diana Ross, Bill Bennett, John McWhorter, Robert George, Plamegate, Lauren Bacall, John Derbyshire, Karen Hughes etc. - just to mention a couple of names who I have no idea about since coming from Hungary I am totally unfamiliar with American politics. It is difficult for me to read the NY Times as well, but not impossible because there I get the background information I need to comrehend the cultural references in the column. But Wolcott's blog is so dense with references that beyond an overall grasp of his style and content it remained largely inaccessible to me.