Reflection on a Blog: So Far

I started at the beginning of the year and it's about halfway through the year now.

I remember that I started with lots of colors, and I think some other formatting choices to illustrate when my thoughts wander or if I think I went down some alley or other.  Now I've left those style choices behind, mainly.

I still attempt to be consistent in spelling, but I know that since I don't notice each error, particularly word choice, and since I don't agree with every automatically red-lined word as incorrect, there are a few inconsistencies.

There are greater inconsistencies with use of punctuation.  I want to be consistent with this but I don't really understand commas and semi-colons and colons enough to choose between their various usages, and like a two-year old in the front of a shopping cart, attracted to everything at eye-level, I flit from goal to goal and have way too many to fulfill.

Speaking of goals, I did want to write every day.  And I also don't want to automatically write everyday as one word just because they are next to each other, just as I don't want to use an apostrophe with every word that ends with the letter S.  But do S and everyday need italics?  Quotes?  Is that fact that Quotes? is not a complete sentence a problem?

One of my favorite authors, Joyce Carol Oates, seems to run fast and loose with punctuation and style.  Because I like everything I've read of hers, I see her freedom as artistic license and believe that she uses style in appropriate ways depending on the situation. 

I once thought that I would change up styles as well, but always stick to complete sentences and familiar spellings.  Now I'm not sure about that at all because people don't speak in complete sentences, necessarily and sometimes I want to reflect upon a character's pronunciation.  I remember in college playwriting class how I would use "should of" instead of "should have" or "should've."  My professor marked it wrong, and she was right.  She was brilliant.  Of course she was right.  But I could hear the character in my head, and he said "should of."  For a play, how else would I tell the actor how to say that?  In a narrative, would it matter?

I love the meanderings of Thomas Hardy and I believe his style is consistent, but I have not studied this.  I think that when he slips in bits about pronunciation; such as D'Urberville becoming Darbyfield, it's so charming.  But when his country characters say something in a certain way, it's no more jarring to me than his use of words I just don't know, that would have been completely understandable to his audience at the time.

I'm writing.

That's the purpose of a blog.