I consider myself a writer. (One of these days, maybe I'll finish one of the many stories, scripts, book ideas and screenplays sitting on my computer and in my head and get published/produced and I can dump the qualifying "consider", but for now, I'm kinda stuck with it.) One of the things I've embraced, as a writer, is the concept of drafts & rewrites. NOTHING I write is done on the first pass. I always have to do at least one or two revisions on anything I write… hell, that's probably the reason I hate writing notes in birthday cards (note to self, try drafting those notes first!). One of the good things about this, though, is it frees up my writing on that first pass… I'm less inclined to edit myself and just let things get on the page, knowing I'll come back later to clean it up and get rid of the junk.
For the longest time, I actually wrote my longer blogs in a separate doc (where I could do my spell check and review what I wrote before posting). This latest version of Blogger makes it easier for me, since it's got an effective spellcheck and I can save a draft of my posts before publishing. So now, more often than not, I go ahead and write my posts out here in the Blogger interface. But I still, almost always, end up saving these posts out as drafts and come back a while later to review them before posting. And, almost always, I end up revising things a few more times before I actually post. Like I said, nothing I write is done on the first pass.
Well, the other day, I'm working on a post and I've been through it once, hit all the points I wanted to and I'm running the spell check, when Dani comes in and says we've got to leave… we've got things to do and we're running late (I refrain from pointing out that we're running late because I was waiting for her—why cause myself needless pain?). So, rather than save the post and come back to it later, I give it a quick once-over and hit Publish. Then we're out the door for the day.
In this post, I took a cheap shot at Dick Cheney's daughter, referring to her as a "self-hating homosexual" because she works for the Bush campaign. No big deal, but it IS the kind of remark I usually reserve for people like her dad and Bush, public figures that I've come to know and loathe and feel comfortable taking shots at whenever the opportunity arises. So it's kind of out of character for me and the type of remark that I'm pretty sure would have gotten dumped when I got around to revising. If I'd gotten around to revising, that is. (In fact, it crossed my mind later that day and I thought about deleting the comment, but I was nowhere near my PC at the moment and the thought was gone pretty quick.)
But, DAMN, did I get slammed by a couple of my friends for it! (Not that that's necessarily a BAD thing… the ensuing email flurry was kind of fun.) Seems they found my rather broad generalization that someone working to reelect Bush—a man that is quite willing to turn gay lifestyle choices into political fodder for his own re-election purposes—would have problems with liking themselves, a bit presumptuous on my part. (I mentioned this to a gay friend of mine and he had nothing good to say about Mary Cheney, but hey, maybe he's a little too close to the subject matter, right?)
But they did smack me around a bit for my snarky remark and, since it was kind of out of character for me (or at least, I think it's out of character for me!), I went ahead and changed it. But I still found it all pretty damn amusing.
(In an aside, if I'd proofed the damn thing before I posted, I probably also wouldn't have let a line like "doesn't mean a few things haven't crossed my path that I haven't had thoughts on" get by me either. Oh well.)
For the longest time, I actually wrote my longer blogs in a separate doc (where I could do my spell check and review what I wrote before posting). This latest version of Blogger makes it easier for me, since it's got an effective spellcheck and I can save a draft of my posts before publishing. So now, more often than not, I go ahead and write my posts out here in the Blogger interface. But I still, almost always, end up saving these posts out as drafts and come back a while later to review them before posting. And, almost always, I end up revising things a few more times before I actually post. Like I said, nothing I write is done on the first pass.
Well, the other day, I'm working on a post and I've been through it once, hit all the points I wanted to and I'm running the spell check, when Dani comes in and says we've got to leave… we've got things to do and we're running late (I refrain from pointing out that we're running late because I was waiting for her—why cause myself needless pain?). So, rather than save the post and come back to it later, I give it a quick once-over and hit Publish. Then we're out the door for the day.
In this post, I took a cheap shot at Dick Cheney's daughter, referring to her as a "self-hating homosexual" because she works for the Bush campaign. No big deal, but it IS the kind of remark I usually reserve for people like her dad and Bush, public figures that I've come to know and loathe and feel comfortable taking shots at whenever the opportunity arises. So it's kind of out of character for me and the type of remark that I'm pretty sure would have gotten dumped when I got around to revising. If I'd gotten around to revising, that is. (In fact, it crossed my mind later that day and I thought about deleting the comment, but I was nowhere near my PC at the moment and the thought was gone pretty quick.)
But, DAMN, did I get slammed by a couple of my friends for it! (Not that that's necessarily a BAD thing… the ensuing email flurry was kind of fun.) Seems they found my rather broad generalization that someone working to reelect Bush—a man that is quite willing to turn gay lifestyle choices into political fodder for his own re-election purposes—would have problems with liking themselves, a bit presumptuous on my part. (I mentioned this to a gay friend of mine and he had nothing good to say about Mary Cheney, but hey, maybe he's a little too close to the subject matter, right?)
But they did smack me around a bit for my snarky remark and, since it was kind of out of character for me (or at least, I think it's out of character for me!), I went ahead and changed it. But I still found it all pretty damn amusing.
(In an aside, if I'd proofed the damn thing before I posted, I probably also wouldn't have let a line like "doesn't mean a few things haven't crossed my path that I haven't had thoughts on" get by me either. Oh well.)
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