Thoughts on ‘The Memex Method’: writingslowly.com
@writingslowly Love this idea. Exploring a large field of inquiry through the organic growth of small posts is what originally drew me to blogging in 2005 and I still feel the pull all these years later.
@writingslowly Seth Godin has been doing this for decades. Sometimes, the books hold together, sometimes they feel like what they are. This is true of Doctorow as well. What I am starting to miss, however, in this world of first thoughts, are truly thoughtful, polished essays that make a clear, complex, and thoughtful argument. I sometimes find I am weary of being used as a guinea pig.
@drwalt good example. The illusion of integrated thought is a problem, which is why I don’t publish absolutely everything just to see what sticks. Thoreau is an inspiration. He gradually honed his writing, so the ‘best’ version was in his books. For me, book writing and blogging are separate.
@chrisfoley I’m keen on Doctorow’s idea of finding ‘subjects of interest’ from the bottom up, by writing and publishing, rather than by determining them in advance. Has that been your experience?
@writingslowly Always. I find myself most interested in blogging when I have minimal plans and keep an open mind. Subjects emerge, frequently in multiple directions. Unpredictability is part of the fun, while a scheduled content calendar usually has me running for the exit.
@writingslowly Nice. So let me ask this: is blogging what we do now, but we used to do the same thing in coffee shops and cafes prior to the 21st century? When Sartre and the gang hung out talking talking talking, we’re they trying out early versions of their ideas on their friends and acquaintances, which they’d then polish and focus and edit later in their books?
@chrisfoley Exactly so. I wrote a detailed content calendar once - which I’ve never looked at since.
@drwalt Isn’t it yes and no, no and yes? A car is like a horse & carriage except it isn’t. An ebook is like a book, but not. Blogging is like 17th century pamphleteering but different. Just talking in a cafe like Sartre might still be the very first step to forming ideas? What do you think?
@writingslowly I can only speak from my own experience and taste. My dissertation was about theater critic Robert Brustein and his teacher, literary critic Lionel Trilling. I am a big fan of the critics of the 1930s to the 1960s, when intellectuals wrote for an educated readership, and did so in a polished, erudite prose that had snap, sizzle, and complexity. I still gravitate toward contemporary writers like Rebecca Solnit, James Wood, and Sadie Smith. As much as I want to like, say, Corey Doctorow, his writing feels a bit over-Zettelkastened and lacking in synthesis. Maybe at my age, I don’t feel like watching the sausage get made, I just want the nicely-cooked breakfast.
> “a polished, erudite prose that had snap, sizzle, and complexity.”
That’s a standard worth celebrating.