We all waste too much time reading (and writing!) boring text. Here is one solution to the problem.

One might speculate if the true reason for boring text are the boring writers… but I prefer to blame it on the word processors. Word processors are all about orthography, grammar, editing, and they all lead to boredom. They destroy the voice, they break the thrill of writing. In the olden days of the type writer writing was dirtier and, if not better in the eye of every beholder, so definitely more exciting for the author.

Some say that we have to bring back the type writer. Block the editing functions in word processors! Block Internet access! Block other programs! Bring back the 19th century! But that’s just being silly, or, at least, ridiculously conservative. Well, in any case, like most conservative ideas, it’s not Internet compliant.

I have a concept in my drawer that describes a digital pro writing machine. A NikonDX300 for writers. A perfect machine that has the hardest keyboard, the brightest screen, the softest software—but, yes, that machine needs a million Dollar venture capital to become real. So I’ll save that idea for later. (Feel free to send me a mail if you have the cash!).

The Beauty of Tweet Blogging

In the mean time this is my solution: Post your text, thought after thought, live on twitter. And put it back together on the blog (or in MSWord or whatever). As a Tweet Blogger, you need to first of all follow the Iron Rule of Tweet: Every tweet needs to work like a little tune. Additionally you need to follow a new rule: Write tunes that sound like a little bird song when put together. The beauty of tweet blogging is that

  • You write under the pressure of losing your audience. TweetBlogging you feel like that spider in that book by Kierkegaard:

When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. So it is with me; before me is continually an empty space, and I am propelled by a consequence that lies behind me.

  • As a reader, you can comment every 140char block of the draft.
  • You’ll be able to see the draft of any article, which can provide interesting insights into a writers work.

The Bad News

Now, before you get too excited about this there are three more tough rules you need to follow:

Tweet Blogging is for creating drafts. Editing happens, as usual, on your blog. And that’s still a lot of work. Blog posts, as usual, are commented on the bottom, but they’re also commented through Twitter, as this softens the nuisance of people posting professorial or fully anonymous asshole comments.

You need to spread your tweets over a long period to not piss off your followers (10tweets/12 hours or so). Tweets that belong together get the same paragraph tag at the end. And you need to wait until we finished the WP-code before you can start doing it yourself.