Writing: Main Course, Desert, Snacks

While gathering my thoughts, or procrastinating, before working of Friday's post in another blog, I checked in at Google Plus. A post there took me to this:

"Meat and potatoes writing and other stuff"
Paul Sofranko, In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him… (July 2, 2013)

"Some other rambling thoughts I've developed since starting Listening to the Lost Voices is the interrelationships between the various forms of writing I care about, namely fiction, blogging and posting...."

Food as a metaphor for written material isn't new. Neither, I suspect, is his main course/desert/snacks breakdown.

That's okay, since I also think that there aren't new stories: and haven't been for thousands of generations. What matters is how a storyteller presents the old tales, and that's another topic. Sort of.

Here's Paul Sofranko's breakdown. That didn't come out right, and I don't have time to rewrite. More topics.

Original writing, Sofranko's view:

• Fiction
  • Meat and potatoes
• Blogging
  • Desert
• Posting on social networks
  • Snacks

I appreciated reading that Paul Sofranko thinks blogging can be (self-) indulgence or service to others.

Even self-indulgent 'my opinion is better than yours' blogs are a service to screenwriters and columnists, sort of. I suspect that the ditzy blogger is a good substitute for the crackpot neighbor in sitcoms. Serious columnists facing a deadline can whip out the required word count with a 'death of reason' piece by writing a '60s column: with "blogging" substituted for "television."

Most of my blogs are of the 'indulgence' variety. I'm still astounded that folks keep reading Apathetic Lemming of the North posts. The 'service' blogs, like A Catholic Citizen in America, take more effort: partly because I realize that nobody's going to read those posts unless I make them mildly entertaining or informative. Yet more topics.

I'm in the happy position of being a semi-retired old coot, so I can indulge my enthusiasm for sharing odd bits of information and spend time sharing not-so-odd ideas.

A deadline looms. I can't put this off any longer, I've got to get back to work.

Vaguely-related posts:

• " 'Sleep on It:' Separating Inspiration From Indigestion"
  (January 24, 2012)
• "The Threat of Dangerous New Technologies: It's Not All That New"
  (August 23, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Writing as (Dangerous) Information Storage and Retrieval Technology
• " 'Willing Suspension of Disbelief' - What's That Mean?"
  (August 17, 2009)
• "A Thought for the Day: Education and Writing"
  (August 10, 2009)
• "Four Millennia of Human Nature: I Think Qoheleth is Right"
  (August 3, 2009)