As regular readers would know, I write a lot.
There are a number of challenges faced every day as I scribble another blog post.
- Using several words when one might do.
- Writing long sentences.
- Using words with a clear meaning to me that may not be as clear to others.
- Not having a simple, sustaining idea for the post: no ‘Hook’.
The last one is the most potent challenge, and why I have masses of material that varies from a few words, to a sentence, to completed posts that never made the ‘cut’ to be published.
As I struggle along, I often think of two stories that make the point.
- Mark Twain writing a letter to his wife, apologising to her for writing a long letter, as he did not have the time to write a short one.
- A well-known Hollywood producer only accepting unsolicited scripts when the idea behind the script was distilled so that it fitted on the back of a business card.
That distilled brevity is what made the 140 character limit on Twitter so powerful. Once they doubled it, the blather more than doubled, and I stopped using it.
It would be nice to be missed by a few, but it is better to be ‘twittered’.
