Digital vs. Print

I will be frank with you. I am bereft of any idea over what to write about for this blog entry. There are, indeed, two worlds to writing – there is of course writing for print, whether it be for a newspaper or an assignment or a book, and then… and then there is writing for the realm of the Internet, a beast that has not quite been tamed. It is difficult, I’ve found, to rehash our assignment into words – so perhaps I will begin instead with a story.

One of my professors once expressed a pressing concern to me: as writing transitions to computers and, specifically, to Microsoft Word, will we lose all knowledge of the writing process? Will we be able to see just how authors construct their masterpieces, their chefs d’oeuvre? Whereas we have the beginning stages of work from authors who wrote at the turn of the century and before, Microsoft Word allows editing that leaves no trace of the before – only the after. What have we lost, he mused, to technology? What secrets to writing will we never be able to see, now that the editing process is hidden from our sight?

Chefs d'oeuvre - catalogue

Later, the same professor would pose me a challenge, though perhaps he did not think of it in this way: form something that everyone can consume, that most people that might happen across it would understand and appreciate. With no knowledge of just who would come in contact with what I created for digital media, I was lucky to be able to rely on myths and legends older than the Americas. But at the same time, I wondered at how much of my voice would carry itself within something that had to be somewhat generic, somewhat detached from my usual introspective works. I failed, largely, on detaching myself; the work I produced was a musing one, which is to be expected. I could not eradicate myself completely from my work.

Of course, it’s difficult to write for something that is online, when one is so used to writing something for print – something to hand in and parade about, an accomplishment within an assignment. But with online interactions being what they are – nuanced, brief, oft-unimportant – one’s style needs to change. One needs to be punctual, brief, to the point. In short, the opposite of what I usually am. People do not tend to stick around when something bores them when browsing the Internet, and if you’re boring, then you’re done. Gone, finished, forgotten. Just like that.

As such, I tend to approach online interaction as something like a mission: get to the point, Kate! You may be thinking that I have failed in this. Largely, I have – but I am much better about succinctness in this class than I will ever be in print. I am long-winded, wordy, and I don’t really know when to stop when it comes to assignments. Like this one. But, of course, I’m not really trying to stop myself here – I’m trying to write like this is a story of mine, because of the lead-in we were proposed: “how we approach writing in different environments.”

A rainforest environment, because I'm really at a loss as to what pictures I should use for this.

When I asked a friend, he sent me this. I just... couldn't not. I hope you understand.

This is how I write in print, generally speaking. At least, I hope it is. But I hope I’ve made this point already, and am not either confusing you or sentencing you to reading a drawn-out campaign for naught. I hope, fervently, that I have captured some form of the assigned blog within this text. I fear that I have not, but as long as I have masked my lingering confusion effectively, I will chalk this up to a win.

Well, as long as I can include this obligatory picture of Cedar Point, that is. I mean, it’s practically tradition now, so my advice is just to go with it, you know? ☺

Cedar Point Marina

Thanks for reading.