Just wanted to extend my appreciation to all here at OSC Hatrack for helping me develop as a writer (*not* as an author..I read on some big writer's website that *authors* are those peeps that, instead on focusing on the actual art/science of extruding decent text-product, would much rather fantasize about passing out oodles of signed copies of their first edition of "The Massage Parlor At The End Of The Sentence: A Tongue-In-Mouth Pastiche of Sir Douglas Adams' Pet Schnauzer" at some or other convention, posing with Harlan Ellison for photographs and generally getting schmoozed by Sci Fi channel people begging him to let them turn his book into a 457-episode mini-series starring Denise Richards, Sean Connery and that one semi-vivacious blonde girl from Sex And The City that also happened to play Lieutenant Valeris in ST IV: The Undiscovered Country).

Man. I told myself I wouldn't be silly and here I sillified the post anyway.

I just wanted to say thanks, is all, and I like to think that I pull my weight in critiquing as much as I can. I'm almost tempted to unload a lot of personal information here just to open up...but I bet that at least a good, hearty 78 percent of you would just dismiss it as a obscenely unheinleined infodump (hehe, couldn't resist).

*raises glass in seriousness*

May whatever time you have left to spend with us continue to be of worth to you.

I had just written a long post about ten minutes ago, meant for this thread, that didn't get posted since I forgot to put in my password for the post. It may have been a synchronicity of sorts, since many may have interpreted it as an expression of severe annoyance if not outright anger on my part with respect to what I interpreted as negative feedback concerning the issue of how I choose to express myself in postings. The post I had typed up went on for several long, expository, humorless paragraphs, talking about semantics theory, and about how some writers can adjust their overall 'voice' to suit whatever need. I cited James Joyces' 'Ulysses' as an example, in which Joyce employs interleaved chapters from different characters' perspctives, using a different writing style for each. 'Ulysses' is extremely idiosyncratic, as well as John Brunner's 'Stand on Zanzibar', which was written in 1968 and won the Hugo the year after. In fact, if you were to read the first page of 'Stand on Zanzibar', you may say, "Gee, he writes as confusingly and cryptically as Nietge does in his posts that no one seems to really understand all that well." Another example I cited was Neal Stephenson's 'Snow Crash', in which it can definitely be argued that the writer did not by any means go out of his way to make his writer's voice seamless and invisible. The 'footprints' of Stephenson and Brunner are very distinctive and noticable.

It would never occur to me to request any particular writer to change her writing voice and style to suit my idiosyncratic tastes in prose. Why do people speak the way they speak in their daily interactions with the different people in their social sphere? Why that particular turn of phrase, why that vocabulary, why those references? Because that's who they are. But some of us are able to change our voice at will. You'll notice in this posting, I haven't used any humor, obscure allusions to popular culture with no attending explanations or decodings, or phrases in parentheses. No experimentations with phraseology. All of it rather dry and expository. And yet, some of you may state that it's still somewhat confusing. And how would I respond to such people? Truthfully, I'm not really sure. Right now I happen to feel I'm fairly clear-sounding. But that's my perspective. Opinions may differ.

I'm sorry if that gave offense. I try very hard to be honest in all my dealings, but this is often offensive to others. Whether this is a failure of my honesty or because honesty is offensive, I find it regretable.

quote:

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All I know is, I am who I am, and my Voice is what it is.

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I thank you all for everything you've done, all the critiques and interaction and so forth; it's certainly helped me as a writer. (At this point, originally, I went off on issues of writership vs. authorship, since it was bouncing around in my headspace from something I had just read recently..and I do feel I'm a 'writer' because there is passion involved. I am moved to tell a good story, and feel that I have something to say to the reader, covertly or overtly).

Then I was motivated to tell a lot about my background and my personal life, but then felt it was inappropriate since I probably would have went on and on for several long paragraphs, throwing around weird jokes all the while, and it may have confused more than it had entertained, so I refrained from it. I just didn't think it would wash all that well.

*shudder*

Like a frickin' literary vulcan cannon.