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Saturday 4 May 2013

WordPress Daily Prompt: It's a Text, Text, Text, Text World

How do you communicate differently online than in person if at all? How do you communicate emotion and intent in a purely written medium?
electric wires Baselstrasse, Solothurn
Electric Communication



I have never really given it much thought. I have an idea, might be a Daily Prompt, and just write. Perhaps I communicate the way I am in person, perhaps not. Mr. Swiss always tells me not everyone understands my sense of humour. Probably because it can be sometimes a bit ironic, a little bit tinged with black edges, and it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Perhaps it is because he is Swiss and I am a born English cockney: a conflict of the species, although life is not boring for both of us.

I am a bit of an amateur photographer, so like to illustrate my blogs when I can. Also saves a lot of explanations about the subject I am writing about..

I do not really do emotions, am not really an emotional sort of person. I try to keep my personal problems to myself. We all have problems, but I do not use my blogging platform as a handkerchief to soak up the tears. I am in Facebook, why not? That is a place for expressing all your likes and dislikes, but I never do. I think I am only there to cross post my blogs and I do have a few good colleagues that seem to stay on the sane side of the tracks. There again I think my expression of emotion is always tinged with a touch of humour. If I have a romantic situation in a poem or prose, the outcome is usually that someone dies by third hand, suicide or accident. I suppose I have a twisted brain, so write often twisted endings to my stories.

Sometimes I am asked to express personal feelings for the daily prompt. Here I try not to give a direct answer, but go around three corners until I get there. I do not want the reader to get the idea I am only writing for myself, after all I am writing for an audience of many people I do not know and I do not want to bore them with the sordid details.

When I write I write in Word to enable corrections. We all make mistakes and my grammatical errors can be quite strange sometimes. The words form themselves in my brain (which is now covered by grey hair), but often the words arrive in German and not English. Yes I am bilingual today, but in thought and speech. I am so glad for the online dictionary LEO which has often helped me out of the patch when I want to write something and only the german word seems to be available. Sometimes I even shout across to Mr. Swiss for a language explanation – two brains are better than one.

I find it very easy to write about my felines. In their autistic similar way they are very predictable, highly selfish and think only about food, having a scratch and sleep. They might want a tummy tickle or a chin rub, but they have to want it. If I want to do it, I more or less have to ask for permission.

There we have the secrets of my blog writing. Wonder what problems Shakespeare had when writing?

2 comments:

  1. Your multi-national/multi-lingual experience has given your writing a unique perspective, which I enjoy very much. It is rare indeed that I fail to understand what you are trying to get across, perhaps because of your thoroughness in getting the word right before clicking the 'publish' button.

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