The long and the short of it

Catching up with my blog list today I read Steve Yegge on essays. He comes out with Essays ... strive to imprint the reader with an idea, some hopefully unforgettable perspective, even if the reader doesn't necessarily agree with it.. He theorizes that ≤50minutes makes for a reasonable essay. That's the reading time btw, not the time to write! From the essay I gather Steves a scientist / Engineer (as apposed to an artistic type). When I was being educated it was thoroughly drummed into me that engineers write terse, factual content. No room for frills. Get it down on paper and you may be top marks. Possibly due to that I've always blogged in brief. Not as briefly as some, but definately far more briefly than Steve. I really don't know how long it would take me to write such that most readers would take 30-50mins to read it. Steve's comment about getting your message over rang bells with me though. Say it 5 different ways and it's more likely that the message will get across. Say it in seconds and that's how long it will take before it's forgotten? We don't have to agree with his caching ideas to see some merit in that. Do you enjoy reading long posts, long letters, magazine articles? I'll assume you have the time so to do. I find that once I'm settled into the article (assuming it keeps my interest long enough to settle in), I'll get to a point where I am unlikely to surface until it is finished (interrupts excepted). I'm possibly hpercritical in that I judge a piece pretty swiftly and skip/jump/exit without much provocation.

My mother and a lady in Dartford wrote to one another for (guessing) around fifty years. Pen and paper, frequency unimportant. I always was full of admiration for such a friendship. For whatever reason I decided to write to the lady a few months ago and (gasp) picked up a fountain pen so to do. Boy was that hard work. Long time ago I was capable of writing at exam speed for 3 hours with only a few shakes of the wrist when cramp set in. Writing this letter I barely lasted a page before the effort of writing was taking precedence over content. I'd assumed, possibly wrongly, that old-fashioned courtesy demanded that pen be put to paper. Her reply never mentioned the fact, though she wrote in the same fashion. My next letter was typed, emacs, and much longer; done in one sitting. She did comment positively this time on the length of the letter so I'm left confused. I must ask. How do manners require a letter to be formed these days to a person for whom you have a great deal of respect? Darned if I know.

One thing that I have noticed of late. I'm far more patient when I sit down to write (on a keyboard). I actually look forward to writing, more so when I'm not fixed to an engineering piece, i.e. about something, technical detail etc. I can sit happily at the keyboard for ... OK, possibly 50 minutes without feeling bored, tired etc. I really haven't noted what the limits might be.

Back to Steves piece. One thing I haven't done since the sixties. Written an essay. Remember? Intro, body, summary kind of stuff? Planned out, clear message. If I'm into non tech writing, I guess I'm rambling. Am I? I certainly don't recall planning a blog entry. Something to say. Get it down, no need to check it, publish it. Bang. The very few blog entries that I have re-read or updated have generally contained glaring errors so perhaps there is a point in checking. Planning a blog entry though? Prep notes? Drat you Steve. There's lots of positives in there! Perhaps like many things, you'll get out of it what you put into it. Fifty minutes? No. Bot L82 is what emacs is telling me. My internal engineer is telling me to stop waffling.