My good friend Michel Martine has written Jazz Blogging - It’s the Notes You Don’t Play an excellent post in which he fiercely defends a blog post shouldn’t be perfect and shouldn’t try to be, because one of the key features of a blog is conversation and space should be left to the reader to join the discussion.
I agree with him but only in part.
I agree that a post has to have something missing so the public can fill in the blanks and create discussion, however, I’d say that is more in the tone of voice than in the content itself.
Still on famous quotations, one that resonates with me is from Salvador Dali: “Never fear perfection, because you won’t reach it”.
Nobody will ever make a post complete, so there should be no fear there isn’t anything to be added. Instead, the tone of the post should allow and encourage commentators to do it so.
It is fairly easy for someone who knows a subject fairly well fall in the trap of giving a post a tone of perfection that creates an unbreakable bubble around it. People who are not as confident will feel intimidated, while people who can contribute might think is not worthy.
Everybody who understood a post is likely to have something interesting to add in a way or another, but they should feel they have.
10 Comments
Great points! Love the Dali quote. Let’s also not forget that on the web, a blog post can only claim to be comprehensive for the time it was published. I love it when people write full posts as a response instead of a comment. It carries the conversation across the blogosphere! :)
@Michael Martine, Blog Consultant -
I though you would like it, I like it myself. I think that when a discussion is worthwhile it makes much more sense to follow it by navigating than by scrolling.
Comment areas are often so small. Not mine, mine is big because I want to encourage people to write as much as they need, but still not big enough, and when I’d redesign this site, I’ll make it even bigger and more comfortable.
Site redesign? Oooh! How exciting! Looking forward to that!
@Michael Martine, Blog Consultant -
:-)
Shame on me, it’s almost done, but couldn’t finish it yet with all the work on client projects and this looking-for-work-in-London thing.
Yeah, that Dali quote fits very well.
I like to think of a post as a nudge in the right direction. It is far from perfect, but it points the reader/user in the direction of perfection.
And this doesn’t only apply to posts with the teaching intent. Posts that just make a point (fiction maybe?) also do the same, though in a slightly more obscure way.
@Steve - It’s really great advice.
@VM (Holy Text) - I agree fiction does that too. I’d say that fiction, like dissertative text, often tries to make a point but, unlike dissertative text, won’t tell you what the point is. And it might not be 100% rational. I think that is a very powerful learning tool for both reader and writer.
The feeling that we must somehow reach Perfect is at the root of a lot of procrastination, I think! How very silly - but how very human. I like to remember the tradition of quiltmaking that calls for the women sewing the quilt to deliberately make one small ‘error’ in the pattern: I think this may have roots in many cultures, and in the idea that to strive for perfection is to tempt the fates or the gods to strike you down! A hint there for bloggers who try to ‘play all the notes’?
@Jen / domestika - I think you are right. Aiming for perfection seems to be the root of a lot of procrastination.
I can only speak for myself, but I think I speak for many when I say that many hours of my time are wasted on the last 1% of works.
And this is not because is (technically) the hardest bit, but is probably because the struggle with the fact that once you call it done, you will have to live with its imperfection.
“Never fear perfection, because you won’t reach it” is a great quote from Salvador Dali and I agree it applies equally in the art of blogging!
Salvador Dali was a complex and controversial character. On Dalí’s personality, George Orwell once remarked that ‘one ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts, that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being, the one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other.’ ha-ha, keep up the good work!
My favorite paintings by Salvador Dali
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