It's a curious observation I made today. My tweeting ability is inversely proportional to my blogging one. I see that ever since I became active on Twitter, I've not blogged AT ALL. Come to think of it, I wonder now that it took me so long to deduce something so logical. When one is trying to condition one's brain to a character limit, it's hardly surprising that the ability to express eloquently is stunted.
At the risk of equating eloquence to depth and lucidity, I can (speaking for myself) say that in my attempt to tweet, I've lost my ability to play around with words and think beyond five lines. It's quite sad actually because I love writing! If you asked me the reason behind why I chose my profession, I could wax eloquent... now I'd probably just say, I love writing, and smile.
But is that enough? Has expressing yourself, discussing an issue or voicing your opinion in more than 200 words really become so redundant? As journalists, we are taught early on in our careers that if you cannot tell your editor what your story is in not more than five lines, you don't have a story. But does saying what the crux of your story is eliminate the need to tell your story altogether?
On gloomier days, I think that is where, we as writers, and a large part of the readers are headed. It's all about sustaining attention after all. If you don't give your reader what s/he wants, then you simply lose the reader. If I can tell you all that I want to in six tweets instead of one blog post, which one would you rather read?
Blogs invariable tend to be lengthy as it is one forum where writers can express themselves freely, which just means that there is no editor breathing down your neck demanding why every word in the sentence is where it is.
But on more optimistic days, I think it's impossible to do away with the "essay" form of writing. That's saying that the newspaper business will be out cold soon. While many people argue that newspapers are redundant with Internet calling the shots, they are still a very significant part of our lives. And while I like seeing the Economist send me tweets about it's latest article, reading a line about what the article is, does not stop me from clicking on the link and reading the story. But it does save me the trouble of going to the Economist website and sifting through all the stories to find something I may wish to read.
The obvious challenge is to make use of both forms of writing to make life easier and free up yourself to write about things you really want to and make it worthwhile for the reader in the process. The other challenge is to stop thinking in tweets, Facebook status messages or blog posts. It makes life infinitely easier if we just go with an open mind and not feel that because an idea is expressed as a tweet, it does not warrant further effort to make something more substantial out of it. I think the set-thinking mode is a trap I fell into.
And lets face it, lethargy rocks! Why bother logging on to your blog and getting your thoughts together when you can shoot it out in two lines and forget about it? Considering that I started this blog post two months ago, believe me when I say it's easy to just let it be.
But, did I not choose to become a journalist because I cared enough to pick up a pen and put it to good use? (Metaphor not withstanding, I did use a pen and paper religiously to write through my college years!) . So anyway, as with the many dramatized ethical dilemmas of my life, this was one to share. Lets see which one gets the better of me.
