My sanrio.com Hello Kitty* horoscope for today:
(February 8th) Try a new way of expressing yourself creatively. Don’t worry about making a perfect piece of art; start telling your story and it’ll go from there.
Which was a coincidence because I was just thinking about the way I blog. I don’t spend a lot of time on word-smithery when writing my blog entries. [although, I did give a serious two seconds to thinking before I came up with the word “word-smithery”] I just write off the cuff. By the seat of my pants. And other metaphors involving clothing. And I guess that’s a good thing. All the books on writing say you should start your draft off by writing without editing or critiquing. It’s just, this isn’t a draft. This is basically it. I do go up to the blog to check to see if things look ok, and sometimes, I see mistakes which I go back and fix. But that’s mostly spelling, punctuation or missing words. So I admire the blogs I read that show a great deal of care and thought in regards to the words used, the tone set. And I ask myself, “why can’t I take that time and that amount of care?” But then I see a shiny object, and I’m off somewhere else.
Wait a second… that’s yesterday’s horoscope! Sun of a bitch. [I actually typed the word “sun” and as I went to change it, I decided to leave it because your horoscope is your sun sign and there’s all this symbolism and shit. Which is really deep. Straight from the seat of my pants.]
*footnote: The sanrio.com horoscopes list my favorite things, as a Libra, to be: Winning Arguments, Designer Clothes, Sugar. I’m not sure about the designer clothes, I’m not really a clothes horse. However I do like shoes and handbags. I am in total agreement with the winning arguments and sugar.
There are books on writing? People actually write writing manuals for others to learn to write reading material? No wonder libraries are so large….
But have you ever sugar-coated an argument?
heck yeah there are books about writing. tons and tons. it’s it’s own genre. some are crap. but there are a couple that i really like. they tend to be less about “get your novel published” and more about why they like to write. in general.
let’s see, sugar coat an argument? oh yeah, specially when i used to do phone tech support. that was my speciality. the angrier and more belligerent they became, the sweeter and nicer i became, while still sticking to my technical guns. so to speak. you would not believe how many people don’t accept what tech support tells them, and just want to argue and terrorize the tech on the phone, arguing every troubleshooting step you make. that’s why, when you, the sweet, kind, thoughtful phone tech end up being right, they feel extra extra bad for being mean to you. it’s vindictive, and yet still excellent customer service!