Fortnightly Issue #10
Meta-review of previous publications
Hi, friends!
Since I took a Sunday off two weeks ago, this will be the 10th almost regular post, a tiny anniversary! Today I want to recap this newsletter so far and see what has been good, what needs improvement, and what’s missing. Honestly, I thought I would detest my writing after a while, especially the early publications. Instead, I liked them even more!
The good parts
Regular writing
The best part of it all is that I’ve started writing on an almost regular basis and have been doing this for almost half a year. Nothing remotely similar had happened to me before. It seems like I can write solid, well-structured texts. This fact alone fills me with joy and prompts me to continue this endeavor.
Certain pieces make me feel invigorated and strong upon my rereading them. I think I still love my first essay the most, mainly for its liberating message. Alas, I cannot say that my style has improved noticeably over this time but on the bright side, texts have begun to require much less effort and time than half a year ago.
New people
Needless to say that people make friends on the Internet these days. This newsletter turned out to be one of the core friend-making facilities for me. It’s rarely the initial place where I make acquaintances — Twitter is much better suited for this — but when I publish a new text, chats and meetings with great people often ensue.
Surely, I will be happy if you help me to boost this!
Something to improve
Grammar
What really shows is my sometimes clumsy grammar. Although it’s usually not bad in the sense that there are specific mistakes in it, the text is hard to comprehend at times. Here, one unwieldy excerpt from my essay Love and Death:
Alongside the ideas of personal history and controlled folly, death — while being our ultimate adversary — is pictured as also one of our life’s central protagonists, the best friend and advisor.
It’s not straightforwardly erroneous but it is certainly much more complicated than necessary, with its “noun, noun — phrase — verb phrase” construction.
Content
I think that randomly picked facts dubbed stray insights are totally off most of the time. Some of the topics that I thought of as the central ones critically lacked meaning in the context of this newsletter. Really, who would appreciate four short paragraphs on ancient Greece that feature randomly picked facts about it, from a guy who has just watched one video on ancient Greece?
Structure
Right now, the structure is not fixed. Maybe it’s a good thing, maybe not, but I’m a proponent of a rigorous approach so I’ll try to stick to the “main topic — optional auxiliary topic — recommendations” form. It’s also possible that an occasional pack of links and short prompts will be published separately from time to time.
The last common thing I want to mention is abrupt endings. This is my bane. When I write down a plan, compose an early draft, everything seems alright. But once I start with the final version, those little unfinished threads infiltrate my text. Of course, this happens not out of the blue but because of…
The missing parts
Depth and elaboration
What’s missing is depth. As a neophyte to the writing craft, I often haste. The initial plan of a publication is just an outline of a map, but the territory has so many quirks and irregularities — you always should, as an author, look closely at them and uncover what questions lie within. And then you should at least try to answer those questions.
I often omit to investigate some twists, because of laziness or indecisiveness to go to the very end of the writer’s inquiry. Laziness is also fed on the notion of length as an obstacle for readers but then, have I ever written a piece too long?
This one ends a little abruptly too, isn’t it? Well, this last time it’s intentional, a gestalt therapy of sorts if you will. Thanks for sticking with me and stay tuned!