Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

Misconception #4: Written as it is.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

::Start here.::

You must remember, above all things, that I'm aware of the audience.

I don't show the audience the grubby gears and mechanics of the backstage area, hidden behind the backdrops. I might provide you with an act or two (or three) of drama and melancholy, but that's still in front of the set.

So you don't really know.

You can't really say I'm not afraid. You can't really say I've got it made. You can't really say much, except a discussion on the play I'm letting you see.

There is a reader who has, gradually, become kind of like an encouraging mentor. I recently let this reader know, every so briefly, that I was afraid I wouldn't have what it takes to finish the flying lessons.

"I have the utmost confidence in you," was the reply.

And so I jumped back on stage and started up again, with another joke.

It's this idea -- that you see the whole production -- that leads to all the other misconceptions about fear and talent and self-deprecation.

Look, do you really want to read a daily blog from some Sad Sack? No. I know that. I don't want to read "poor me" every day, either. So I write as I write because there are people in the audience.

This journal entry/blog post, for example, details a moment that wasn't funny at the time. It was, in fact, during a period of stress and fear and self-doubt over not having a place to live. I could certainly written some melodramatic Victorian prose about my plight, but geez -- who wants to read that?

And more importantly, who wants to write that?Dwell in the dirt too long, and all you do is get dirty.

I'm part of the audience. I need to be able to laugh and not always chronicle the mess backstage. I write for my own benefit as much as yours.

Labels: essay, personal, series, writing

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Portable home.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Home can be found in the strangest ways.

Today was a bummer, but I'm not going to delve into it. It'll pass.

Anyway, as I was sitting here writing it all out in my journal, I could feel myself relaxing, as if I were home. I've spent enough time writing in journals at home or other non-stressful places that, it seems, I associate the act of writing in a journal with the feeling I get there.

Essentially, by just writing in my journal, I have a portable home.

As I wrote in my journal: "...the familiarity of pen on paper is just enough to evoke a "you're home, you're safe" feeling.

Oddly, I get that same feeling in...(prepare yourself, for it's terrible)...Target. I've gone to the Target store in Grand Forks with my parents so much that I have an association with it. My mom calls it her "favorite store" and there are other associations and memories with trips to Grand Forks that get capped off grocery shopping in Target that when I found myself walking through Target today I felt that similar feeling.

I'm more proud of my journal association than my Big Box Store association, but there you have it. Feelings of home can be portable, as long as the roots were made deep long before you called them up for use.

I think writing is going to be very, very useful for me. Target, less so, since I don't have any money and I'm afraid the security would be weirded out if I just wandered around the store every day. Plus, there's so much red there, and all the little targets. It upsets me after a while.

Labels: family, humor, my life, summer 2008, writing

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Better on paper.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I found myself saying in an email, yet again, that I am "better on paper.*" I say it a lot, usually as an excuse as to why I'm hesitant to meet people who only know me by my writing.

That's such a disappointment, I would think.

I'll say things in writing that I won't say in person.

But then I stumbled upon 2 Corinthians 10:1 and finally saw something in it. It's repeated again, in 10:11.
This is from a chunk of scripture where Paul is addressing those questioning his authority, and in amongst a lot of other good things, he talks about how, in person, he may seem meek while in his writing, he is bold. I'd suggest having a go at the entire chapter (or book) rather than let me butcher it, but those two verses really caught my eye.

I'm better on paper. I express what I'm truthfully thinking when it goes through the filter of the pen.
I'll say what I'm really thinking in writing, where, if you asked me something in person (how are you? anything new? what are you doing these days? anything to say?), I'll probably give you the following answers:

I'm good, thanks.
Oh, not much.
Same old same old.
Nuthin'.

The me on paper is not in conflict with the one-to-three-word answer me. I used to think it was, but I don't see it as that anymore.

I'll say a lot on paper, and put my name on it. But, in person, I probably won't even meet your eyes.

*Paper = screen = the written word; pen = keyboard

Note: This post was pre-written and published as scheduled. Read more about this here.

Labels: blogging, personal, religion, writing

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Death to answers-by-questions.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

I cannot stand the latest trend in defensive discourse. It's one where a person speaks and/or writes using questions that he or she answers immediately. Here's an example from a post over at my Lone Prairie Studies blog:

We CRAVED the word of God. WE CRAVED the preaching of the gospel. We were starving and wasting away spiritually.... Was it difficult to leave? Yes. Were we sad to leave our brothers and sisters? Yes. Did we have to go? Yes. And the Lord has made up for all that we had to leave behind.

You see this all the time. Politicians, interviews, bloggers, online forums -- everywhere. Instead of all the rigmarole as seen above, the entire paragraph could have been stronger and less defensive by simply stating:

It was difficult to leave. We were sad to leave our brothers and sisters. We had to go.

The only reason I can figure that people use this technique, now, is because:

Laziness.
They think they know the questions that will be raised from whatever they are talking about, so they put those questions into the writing, and answer them, to save time and effort.
They want to effectively avoid certain types or depths of questions, so they include a bastardized version of the question that really doesn't ask anything in depth but appears to have answered it, thereby shutting up the people who want to ask something similar.
Everyone else does it, and it is so rampant, that people think it is not only acceptable but also some form of intelligent writing. (It isn't.)
The writer is defensive and wary of attack. This could be part of his nature, or it might be because he has an inkling that the position he's holding to isn't very strong, or at least, as strong as he would like. He has to come out with all the bases covered to head off any foreseeable attacks before they can even start.

For example, a politician might say: "Was it wrong to have relations with that woman? Yes, no question." This makes anyone who later asks any question that ponders the rightness and wrongness of the situation seem silly. "I already answered that." Though it is true that the simplest, barest version of the question was answered, it really wasn't answered.

It's as bad as using "I think" in front of declarative statements. Of course you think that. You're saying it. The only reason a person uses "I think" in front of it is to leave himself an out if someone proves the statement wrong.

"Well, I never said it was true. I only said that's what I think."

One of my favorite essays of all time is George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." I've read it countless times. I have a feeling that somehow, if he were still around, he'd agree with me on this topic. At the very least, he'd unflinchingly point out the excessiveness of the technique, if not fully despise it as I do.

Is there a better way to write? Yes there is. Have I ever done something similarly annoying on this blog? Very likely. Am I the world's best, most flawless writer? Not by a long shot. Does this still irritate and annoy and drive me to near insanity when I see it?

Absolutely.

Labels: blogging, rant, writing

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Caring cards.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Making a caring card for someone.

One of Shannon's ideas for the morning kid's crusade/VBS, on the day the children learned about Job, was to have them create caring cards.

Regular blog readers know I'm a huge fan of writing and sending and saving letters and cards and letting people know you care and that you appreciate them by doing that. So of course, I thought the idea was fabulous.

And it was.

The kids had a great time, and we later heard of how proud they were of what they'd made when the went home and showed their parents.

I even made a caring card, sitting down in a circle of kids who quickly swarmed all over me wanting me to help them draw things on their card. My idea was to make a "caring card" and pass it around the group, with it being given to whoever seemed to be having a tough day. I never got the idea to work, though. I didn't get everyone's signature inside and I just never seemed to find the time to explain the idea. (front of card | inside of card)

Don't do that, if you decided to make a caring card. You gotta send it out!

I loved that concept that Shannon came up with for the day's project. I remember, about ten years ago, I was teaching the teen Sunday school class. I had them make cards for people in the church, and then pray for the people as we put the cards in the church mailboxes during Sunday school hour. It was a blessing to the kids to be able to stop being teens in the usual sense (i.e. "what can the church do for me, to entertain me and keep me in church") and start being fellow brothers and sisters in Christ (i.e. "what can I do for those who are older than me to remind them of Christ's love and be an example").

::I have, in the past, made a free download or two available for readers to send out something similar to the idea of a caring card. I'd encourage you to consider sending out something to someone to let them know you care.::

Labels: kids, nicaragua, nicaragua 2008, writing

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Journals: I am, part one.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

::Journal jottings in preparation for the "I am" project.::

"How are you?"

I say it myself, but I hate being asked it.

I know it's meant well and to cover a multitude of questions with one simple phrase, but I am rarely ready to answer about my state of being.

How am I...compared to how I could be?
How am I...compared to how others seem to be?
How am I...compared to how I should be?
How am I...on a scale of one to ten?
How am I...at basketball?
How am I...now?
How was I...yesterday?
How will I be...tomorrow?

What I was and what I will be
Seem to affect
How I am being
Now.

How am I?
To be or not to be.
Am, is, are
Was, and were.
I am.
But not the I Am.

How am I?
Why "how"?
Why not what, or who, or where?

I am many things.
I am tired.
I am hungry.
I am a success and a failure.
I am out of here.

I don't know how I am.
Or are.
At any given moment.
Such a protean question, to be used as a simple greeting.

"How are you?"

An impossible question faced on a regular basis.

Labels: personal, writing

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Ink across paper across time.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

:: Written words are magical. Pen and ink and paper capturing the electronic bursts and flashes in our brains that make up our thoughts? Magical. I am always intrigued when I think about what it meant for humans to develop a written language, all that it involved, all that it changed. The power in the pen. The promise of what a blank sheet of paper holds. I miss paper. I'm a lover of paper and I miss the moment it creates in my hand when I've spent too much time at a computer. I love to sit in the quiet and simply write. Write letters, write in my journal -- write. This is a post about such things.::

An email arrived yesterday evening. It was lengthy and, with a quick glance at the neat paragraphical structure, I decided to print it out on paper and read it, giving it a paper-real moment. There are emails that are short and quick and informative, serving the purpose of instant communication. And then there are emails that are true letters. Those I print out.

I sat in bed and read the letter.

It referenced the poetry of Eliot and talked about moments of time that become timeless. The writer of the letter discussed simplifying life, and taking pleasure in simple things. He wrote on what it is like to be sensitive in sharp-edged world.

It was a lovely letter, and I re-read it many times.

I save all of my letters. Every single letter I've gotten -- from a child until now -- I have. There aren't as many as you'd think; letter-writing is so rare now. I always feel a slight pang when I'm in a bookstore and thumb through a book that consists of the letters written by a poet or philosopher. In my own collection of books, I have many of these from Rilke to collections of Letters of a Nation to Letters of the Century. Think of all the knowledge, the writings, the thoughts -- think of what has been handed down to us through history originally from a letter?

Am I writing letters that could ever be considered for such a thing? Am I in an exchange with another person where the quality and content is of larger interest? It's not an arrogant wish for such a collection to be made, that I ask this of myself, but rather a standard I hold about my personal writing. Do I write only for journal or blog, or do I put pen to paper and send it through the mail so a person a great distance away can open it up and relive that moment of electricity in my brain?

When I read the New York Times article about Hillary Clinton's letters to her friend from college, I envied both of them. To have that kind of letter exchange...not about weather, not a mere special occasion card. No. Letters instead on ideas and theories and Things That Matter to the person writing in the moment they were written.

I love writing letters -- long, handwritten, visually lovely letters -- and I love receiving them. That moment, when you get your mail, and see an envelope that clashes with the junk mail and the bills. Even a long, letter-like email will do, in an inbox filled with reminders and requests.

I crave -- and crave is not used loosely -- serious letters. I desire them far above the short notes and dashed-off sentences that we have grown comfortable with now, to keep business moving or to keep our lives in polite and workable order. I crave the obscenely long and deep letter on abstract and overly-lofty topics mixed with humor and heart.

I might write a letter on what I'm doing now and tie it into what I've read. I might write what I'm struggling to work through in my mind and use the poetry of another to help me while writing and the reader while reading. Letters that dip and swoop and meander. Ink across paper.

I want to write great letters! I want to read great letters! A letter is like no other thing. It's a personal message to a specific person or group. It is a journal entry for an audience of two. I can't even begin to link to every post on this web site in which I espouse writing letters, they are that important to me.

So I read the letter last night in bed, savoring the words of its writer before turning out the light, thinking on its mention of Eliot and his idea of when time and timelessness intersect.

I read the letter Will sent with some of his photography examples, enjoying his penmanship and the delightful way he talked about where he was while writing and about the pen he was using before moving on to what was happening in his life.

I read the letter a friend from college wrote, filled with clever illustrations that belied the struggle she described she was having as an artist.

Writing letters takes time, but they can transcend time. That's the kind of thing I want a part in. And so, I'm off to write some replies.

-------------------

UPDATE: You can read about my college friend's letter, and my reply, here. There's a free download available that you might want. Or not.

Labels: writing

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The Eddie Bauer all-weather outdoor journal.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Supposedly, you can write in the rain on it, its paper specially coated to repel water. It works.

For about three minutes.

And then, because the paper has been cut to fit the notebook, the water seeps in along the edge and creates a borderline disappointment. I will admit that, after setting the notebook out to dry, it did recoup the momentary dishevelment and looks to be in fairly good shape.

It was during this moment of rain (see video here) that I wrote the following, trying to describe it in the same way I would jot down momentary ideas and thoughts when I was a reporter and tried to capture a scene for later:

Summer Thunderstorm

Never-ending thunder that sounds like a machine, rolling, booming.
Winds whipping the rain into a hazy veil across the slough.
Lightning, like strobes, flashing bulbs.
Cold air, a relief from a thickly hot day, sticky, waiting to explode.
Rain water pelting the gravel driveway, hollowing out around the larger stones.
Rain water, pouring and pooling down my back, like sweat had been earlier.
Standing here with dad, in the soaking, rumbling storm, on the front deck, maybe a couple of crazies.

Labels: family, nature, writing

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To laugh or cry?

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

Please check out the train wreck in the comments of this post.

Laugh or cry? What should I do?

Keep in mind these are WRITERS and a PUBLISHER.

I'm partly tempted to start writing comments there under various fake names and try to mimic the writing stylelessness of some of those who have posted. Or, perhaps, use the supplied information to write short story bursts, or bits of dialogue, and sharpen my fiction-writing skills based on the trauma wrought forth in capital letters and missed punctuation.

That just seems cruel.

But I'm tempted.

Labels: blogging, writing

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Creative tools.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I've figured it out.

I've figured out why I like jobs like working the night shift at the Post Office or something along those lines that have nothing to do with writing or art or anything remotely creative.

Writers, artists, and musicians who have the skill, drive, confidence and desire to create on their own, having their own taste and knowing it, are quickly worn out working in a job that seems to be perfect for such skills. Being able to design or write or create on your own terms is very different than being bound in by your boss's terms.

When I design my own posters, graphics or materials for my own use, I love it. It's fun and freeing and exciting; the ideas seem to come out endlessly. When I paint for my own enjoyment rather than commissioned and told what to paint, it is a challenge and a release. When I have to design for another person, or an employer, however, I have to design according to how I know their tastes are and this often clashes with my own personal taste and instinct. It leaves me feeling embarrassed by what I've created and strongly wanting to disassociate my name with it.

Few things are more exhausting than frustrated creativity being hemmed in by boundaries and walls that don't make sense and that I don't even agree with. Suggestions and ideas that are pushed aside only serve to make me doubt my own opinion and ability.

It's not my work, really. It's my skills stripped clean of anything me and used as a tool to create the desires of someone else.

Creative tools aren't pencils and brushes and word processors and instruments. They are frustrated people trying to make a living using their gifts in a way that kills them.

And really, who wants to be a tool?

Labels: art, essay, writing

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Idea not yet finished.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

I'm a habitual note-taker and I often find, as I'm taking notes in church, that other ideas pop into my mind.

This past Sunday, I'd misplaced the current carry-around journal that I'm working my way through, so I grabbed an old one off of the shelf that had a few blank pages left in it. During the service, as I was taking notes, I started to flip through the journal. It had to be from about two years back. I came across one of what I call my "dashed question" sections in which I have an idea or early concept and I list it out as questions in an unumbered list set apart with dashes.

Perhaps Tolkein would call it something like "Ideas Not Yet Finished" or something far more lovely than "dashed questions."

On the page of the old journal I was apparently struggling with the concept of defining beautiful.

-Is there one standard of beauty?
-Who defines beauty?
-What is beautiful?
-What is the value of beautiful?
-How important is beauty to this world? In this world? For this world?
-Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?
-If that is true, then the power to make beautiful is in the one looking.
-Is it possible for me to make something/myself beautiful if it is up to the one looking?
-That seems dangerous.
-But then something everyone else thought ugly could be made beautiful by the one looking.
-That seems hopeful.
-There is a need for beauty in life.
-How do artists/writers/musicians play into it?
-I have to think more about this.

I'm going to expound (and no doubt bore everyone) on this topic later, since I've been thinking more about the general idea of adding value without limiting it to beauty.

You'll be happy to know I did find my current carry-around journal. It was in a pile of, uh, dirty clothes on my floor. I'd be more ashamed except I've decided I'm just not going to be.

Labels: journals, lists, writing

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It's the notes in the margin that count.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Someone finally took me up on my offer to get some real reporter stuff. So I've gathered a pile of documents, notes, chartes and other similar materials that I used in my newspaper reporter days that, for some pack-rat reason, I've held onto.

And I'm laughing.

I was crazy in the margins of my notebooks.

First, there's the caricatures of county commissioners, the mayor, the sheriff, the highway patrol officer, engineers, local business owners, and pretty much anyone who came to one of the hundreds of long, dry meetings that I sat through for years. There are post-it notes, still attached to photocopied press releases and other materials that I had to use for background information for stories. There are charts that detail expenditures and drug busts and FEMA payouts. There are satellite maps, and diagrams of wet lands.

And crazy notes and quotes I put in the margin that would never go in the article but are funny nonetheless. My notebooks are filled with the scribbles and comments and drawings. Things like "could this get any more boring!!!!" and "someone shoot me if he says 'cold mix' one more time!!!" and "powerpoint is evil!" and "what an idiot" -- you get the idea.

For example, in the pile of stuff I'm sending out today, I find the story at hand to be about water drainage and wet lands, always a source of contention. Here are my margin notes, as written, taken from the real conversation of the moment:

Farmers should get cash $ for not draining wetlands. Those w/o wetlands should get same as those who don't drain -- R.

"I'd go out and buy a new pickup tomorrow."

RE sample "A backhoe works pretty good to take a soil sample." - D.

"Maybe LAND has one." - jabs at USFW

I just laugh. If you've ever sat in on these kinds of meetings, you know what I'm talking about. Great source of comedy. Great source of drawing material.

I think the recipient of these few items will have a fun time going through them and getting a little piece of news, notes, and politics from a small North Dakota county. Post-it notes and drawings included.

Labels: local, my life, promotion, writing

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Losing first loves in the blogosphere.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

I've been blogging since 2002. That doesn't make this the oldest blog around, but it's not too bad.

And about every two years I reconsidered blogging and then I would postulate on my blog that perhaps it was time to close up shop. Then I would get a bunch of emails from readers, family and friends saying I should do what I think best but asking me to please not stop. So I would gather up myself and decide to continue, and then I would come up with some awful, wordy post about all the grand changes I'd be making only to abandon that plan in about two weeks.

Typical Julie.

Why did I do it? Why did I want to quit in the first place?

On a surface level, I've never gotten used to people I don't really know coming up to me and talking to me like I was a close friend when they only know me "on paper" and not through personal communication or real life. It can be unnerving to realize people know more about me than I about them when, during a conversation, I discover they read my blog. And of course, it's always a bad corner that's been turned when people nervously laugh and say something along the lines of "you won't put that on your blog, now, will you?"

I'm not sure what to think. I'm just an average Joe like the next average Joe, putting some writing online. I often wonder what it does when you only get to know someone through a blog and then form all kinds of ideas about them. I am much different in person; I say stupid things, am incredibly immature and short-tempered, have an annoying laugh and trip over my feet a lot. I'm really much better on paper because I can think about what I'm going to say instead of just blurting some inanity. But..."I read your blog, Julie, and I think it's great! I just have to meet the person who writes those things!"

I can only imagine the let down. That whole bizarre thing about meeting people who read this blog makes it tempting to close up shop. But what bothered me the most was the way I began to observe life instead of being in the moment.

It's a strange thing to go through a day and think, while something is happening or while something is heard, that "I have to remember this for my blog." It turns me, at least, into a perpetual observer, always remembering what people did and what they said so I can write about it later, either on one of my blogs or in my personal journals; perhaps I've always been an observer and having a blog is the perfect fit. I don't know. Sometimes, in a fit of childishness, I resent the assumption that I can be counted on to observe. But if that's my job, to be the storyteller -- I need to figure that out, I guess, and a blog's as good a place as any to do it.

Those of you who suffered -- and I do mean suffered -- through the early formats of this blog may remember when it was political and current event orientated.

It was awful.

I linked and fisked and rehashed what was happening at the time. I joined the amen choruses, the shouting brigades, the comment screechers, and linked to prove my side was right with the best of them. I ignored the importance of what was going on all around me, the small things that make up the real news, and focused on the divisive hot topics of the moment that about 400 other bloggers were already talking about and doing a much better job.

How silly.

That really sucks the life out of a person, writing about what creates anger, constantly regurgitating some other news or blog article and throwing out opinions on already old news. The fact that what passes for news is so small and that it is only made larger by thousands of opinions piled onto it did not escape my notice.

I changed this blog before it changed me. I decided I'd had enough of that.

In the fall of 2005, I stopped blogging for over a month, watched my hits drop, deleted the old blog, and started over.

My blog hits grew back slowly and have steadily increased to be higher than they were. It's taken me years and it's laughable compared to poli-blogs, but readership has grown.

I started telling the stories around me, of life, of nature, of things I observed and wondered about. I wrote about what made me laugh and cry and bristle and embarrassed. I decided the world could do with more funny moments and if I was lucky enough to have experienced one and could figure out a way to put it in writing to make people laugh, then I should do that.

I wanted to talk about the complexities of serving Jesus Christ, about life, about North Dakota, about living in a rural area, about things my readers might not know, about weirdness and insanity and old diary entries and curiosities and philosophies and books and anything but politics and what was hot in the moment and dead in an instant.

If I was going to get angry and spew it from this blog, it was going to be about something small. And if a topic made me angry, I vowed to try to cover it in a way that brought the tone down and ended without anger but with something the reader could take and use.

I'm not always successful, but that is my continued effort here on this blog.

If you want to be a big-name blogger with lots of hits and media attention, you cover politics and current events and willingly enter into every word fray that flames up on the Internet.

I don't want to be a big-name blogger, then.

I want to put something original out there, something that a reader might take with them and think about, instead of more opinionated rehash. I want to learn to write better, to challenge myself, and not just link and deconstruct. It's no longer enough to just get an opinion out there because every idiot has an opinion and about 90 percent of them have a blog. Every idiot has an opinion, but not every person takes the time to translate what is observed before shouting out an opinion. I want to help with the observation.

I am still trying to hit that goal of original content that speaks life instead of anger. I suffer from less blog burnout, though there are creative dry spells. My writing is slowly improving. My own opinions and views are changing because I'm not just busy looking for like-minded links to build my case.

I don't want to quit blogging based on surface irritations, or personal selfishness. I really believe that the poet has the power, and I want to do my part as best I can which, for now, includes blogging.

Why this post, now?

Because yes, LaShawn, I know what you are talking about.

Hat Tip: Northern Gleaner.

Labels: blogging, writing

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A mere stanza.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Bruce Springsteen: Matamoras Banks

(Each year many die crossing the deserts,
mountains and rivers of our southern border
in search of a better life. Here I follow the
journey backwards, from the body at the
river bottom, to the man walking across
the desert towards the banks of the Rio Grande.)

For two days the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes, so they lay open to the stars

Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
'Till every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same

Goodbye, my darling, for your love I give God thanks,
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks

Over rivers of stone and ancient ocean beds
I walk on sandals of twine and tire tread
My pockets full of dust, my mouth filled with cool stone
The pale moon opens the earth to its bones
I long, my darling, for your kiss, for your sweet love I give God thanks
The touch of your loving fingertips
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks

Your sweet memory comes on the evenin' wind
I sleep and dream of holding you in my arms again
The lights of Brownsville, across the river shine
A shout rings out and into the silty red river I dive
I long, my darling, for your kiss, for your sweet love I give God thanks
A touch of your loving fingertips
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks

---------

There's rhetoric to read about immigration, rhetoric for which there is no shortage. It's logical and backed with facts and found everywhere. It's conservative and liberal. All of it is an echo chamber. Two sides, hollering, throwing policy like darts. The audience gets restless.

This is not a post about immigration.

The managers, the lawyers, the business brokers, the scientists, the advertisers -- their power is borrowed, an illusion that can be shattered by a mere stanza or chord or snap of the shutter or swirl of blue paint.

A story, even one that is not real, is true and is power in the hands of a poet. I hate to see artists and musicians and writers be sold short, and to sell themselves short or for a price. There is value and power in what they are able to do.

Tell the story. Tell it in words, in pictures, in music. The audience is waiting. From that change comes.

Labels: art, current events, writing

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The problem with blogs (if there was only one).

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

Blogs, true blogs which, in my belief, allow comments and discussion, are basically circles of words. All we have to go on, when reading a blog, are the words in front of us.

Some writers try to convey tone through smiley faces or punctuation, but this really doesn't work. A smiley face can be taken as a smirk if the words preceding them are interpreted negatively. Too many commas might change the tone. Some writers use caveats to excess in order to head off any chance for offending a reader. Some writers back-peddle as much as move forward, leaving the reader feeling a bit Clintonian from the writer's effort to understand all sides at once to all degrees. Sarcasm is common (sadly, and I admit to it, too), but being common doesn't make it any less tricky. It is difficult to tell if something is sarcasm or if what's written is being played straight. All capital letters, excess exclamation points, consistently poor spelling, lack of paragraphs, analogies that fall flat or aren't recognized by readers -- all of this can color what the writer is trying to say.

Conveying the intended message takes great skill because there is more to consider than just word selection and spelling. Getting across the correct tone is just as vital to the message. Tone is, essentially, the "words behind the words."

Unfortunately, tone is nearly impossible to convey on a blog, particularly when things get "personal" and there are many voices and personalities -- with different communication skills and agendas -- joining in on the conversation through a blog's comments section. It's a crazy cacophony of noise and thought and free associations. Blogs with comments sections, in particular, are confusing because it is natural to associate the comments with the blog owner since the comments were allowed in the first place. This colors the reader's view, too.

I can think of no better example than this recent post of mine, and the ensuing comments both on my blog and the blog in question (read the comments towards the end, in particular). In this case, as if often inevitable, defenders of the supposedly impugned use the defense "you don't know him like I do, and you're wrong in your interpretation and you're also this, this and this!"

Maybe true, maybe not. All I have to go on are the words on the screen. I know that this happens to me when I am the reader and not the writer. I don't think a person who really knows me would say the things about me that others who don't know me have said. Such is how it is with blogs. All you have are the words in front of you.

You can't infer inflection, gestures, expression, or tone. I can't write a blog like a drama script to better flesh out the mood and help your understanding. The one thing a reader can do -- what I do -- to better understand where a blogger may be coming from is to read more than the post at hand, or read more than the posts that are part of a "collection" of similarly themed posts.

Before I leave a comment on a blog I've never been to, or write about a blog post, I've found it a good practice to go to the main page of the blog and read a large selection of unrelated, recent posts. I often get a better picture of the writer and start to pick up on writing tics or habits that lead me to interpret his or her writing better. The times I haven't and have just fired off a comment or blog reference are always a mistake. (Case in point: read the bottom two comments of this post.)

In short, it is important to put a blog and blogger in context (unless you only want ammunition for an argument and want to use something out of context). Extremely skilled writers (which I am not) would make this unnecessary but the blogosphere is filled with all kinds of writers, many of whom are average, like me.

This is not the practice, this search for context, that all readers take. Some use the valid excuse of time as the reason for not doing so. I can tell, by looking at my stat counters, which comments are left by people who did or did not do this. I can also tell this by looking at the strange summations in the comments. I've been told to get a life, that I'm narrow-minded, that I'm liberal, that I'm conservative -- really, it's strange.

Without context, one blog post or comment I leave cannot possibly sum me up accurately. I need to keep this in mind for blogs and writers I haven't become familiar with yet.

If you don't like this blog, don't like what I say, or don't like me, here are a couple of things to consider:

You could parody this blog. Go buy lonelyprairie.net or lonerprairie.net or whatever you'd like. Write posts about what you don't like about me, my blog, my opinions, and whatever else. I certainly won't cease and desist on my blog because I don't care. It's a free world. I might even get a laugh.

If you don't want to leave a comment or feel you're just not getting the air time here at Lone Prairie that you deserve, due to my comprehensive Blog EULA (which I rarely enforce), go start your own blog. Really. I encourage you to do it. Build up your own readership through hard work and original posting, get the discussion going, and you're all set. You can even lift my RSS feed and fisk my blog, whether or not I like fisking.

If I put it on the Internet, I certainly can't then pretend to be able to control how people react and respond to it, though I may visit your blog and offer an explanation for what I see is a wrong conclusion. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" is something I often hear. True, maybe, or not. I see no reason not to provide an accurate explanation for any claims or charges laid at my door. It is nonsensical to start a discussion and then say a person protests too much for actively taking part in the discussion.

I'm actually a pretty nice person. I'm not perfect, same as you. Read more on this and my other blogs before coming to your final decision on me and my writing. I offer you the same courtesy if you have your own blog.What you can't do is send me personal emails that are just rude. I mean really; what is that all about, anyway? That's just ridiculous.

So what is the problem with blogs, at least for this post? It is a problem of context, a problem of interpretation. There is no solution.

Labels: blogging, writing

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Everyone has an opinion. Pay your dues before sharing it.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Craig's blog, Lead and Gold, is one of the best out there, and one of the few hold-overs from my early foray into blogging nearly four years ago. I rarely link to his posts, though, because most of the time they're way over my head. His recent post on editorials and opinion pages in college newspapers, entitled "Molly Ivins has a point" caught my attention partly because I could understand it and partly because I'm coming into agreement on this as I get ~~aged~~ ~~elderly~~ older.

Craig quotes from Ivin's column:

I have long argued that no one should be allowed to write opinion without spending years as a reporter -- nothing like interviewing all four eyewitnesses to an automobile accident and then trying to write an accurate account of what happened. Or, as author-journalist Curtis Wilkie puts it, "Unless you can cover a five-car pile-up on Route 128, you shouldn't be allowed to cover a presidential campaign."

He then adds his two cents regarding the college newspaper editorial pages:

Of course, her target is bloggers. I, OTOH, was thinking about college newspapers. They should get rid of their editorial pages.

Molly sez that it takes years of reporting experience before your opinion is worth a lick. So those student editorials are just wasted newsprint that teach the wrong lesson to budding journalists.

I wonder if Molly and the Project for Excellence in Journalism agree?

My short stint as a reporter for a county newspaper provided me with many unique experiences that changed me from the blowhard idiot opinionist of my early blog into the blowhard idiot opinionist with age-appropriate flair of this blog. I think the change in the quality of writing is noticeably less nauseating than the early blog.

I consider the times when I sat in on meetings covering hog farms and watched neighboring farmers holler at the county commission, veins popping in red faces as their mortified wives sat next to them, tugging on their sleeve, gold as far as experience is concerned. Or sitting in on city commission meetings with a bar owner hollering into my ear behind me over the sewage ordinance and expensive street project while the city commission members up front looked either constipated or took a new interest in their ball point pen - another moment of great learning. The key to those few years of experience as a small-potatos reporter being: I have to write a story, I have to listen to all sides, I have to take fast and accurate notes, I have to understand the broader concept, I have to keep my opinion out of it, I know these people and they know me and it is personal, and I have to be prepared to take the angry phone calls when the story comes out.

I think this blog has improved with age, like wine or cheese as opposed to my ever-creaking knees. Part of it was the reporting experience, knowing what it was like to go out and do interviews and research and try to pull together a story that would make the issue clear. It would be good to send college students out to small towns where their opinion isn't just that of an anonymous rabble-rouser, but a real person the public sees (and will accost, believe me) in the cafe, the grocery store and on the highway. When a person loses the protective wall of being just another talking head in a large college or city, suddenly they start to think a little more carefully of how they are going to say what they mean to say. More careful thinking is always in need.

Craig is on to something. We need less mouthy brats who think they know everything and are convinced that somehow their generation is special and unique just because Time and Newsweek, in an effort to increase subscriptions to the younger demographic, put every generation on the cover and tout how they'll change the world, and a few more thoughtful young people willing to learn less about formulating shallow opinions for this week's edition as opposed to learning how to get and report an actual story.

::Back in the day Generation X was something to be reckoned with according to the news media, a slacking wild force of change. Now we Gen-Xers eat Cheetos and blog and make car payments, wishing the stupid college kids would turn their music down. Your time is coming, that's all I have to say. You'll see.::

I would like to add to Craig's theory the following pre-requisite before college newspapers allow students to write opinion columns: first they have to sit through enough water board meetings to appreciate the finer points of getting a culvert put in on a township road, write about it, and field the calls from the farmer downstream who thought your article was slanted and ill-informed. At that point, you can start putting out your opinion for the general ma