Frazz by Jef Mallett for April 03, 2022

Up through about 10th grade, writing assignments included a deadline AND a minimum word count. It was amusing (to me) to see that some kids turned in EXACTLY 500 words or whatever it was. One of the less brilliant in that group would simply stop without consideration for whether the sentence was complete, much less the paragraph or idea. At some point, though, I joined the work force and the papers I wrote had to address the subject, persuasively and with accuracy and care. And about half the time, the person who wanted the paper was an editor, so after I finished, she “refinished”… and I proofed her changes… The results were… better… but usually a lot less creative.

Turn in your math worksheet way early. If Burke complains, you can rub it in Frazz’s face.

Because without a deadline, members of the forensics team will turn in 4-8 page papers. My kid had a writing prompt. 20 minutes of class time to defend or convict Aaron Burr for the death of Hamilton. Most of the class handed in 3-6 paragraphed. She turned in a 3 page essay. Her two teammates on the team got 5 and 6 pages respectively.

The thing that always used to annoy me about homework was what I was convinced was a conspiracy among all the teachers to set identical due dates for their separate classes.

I had a poetry class in high school. The teacher always gave us a week to write a poem, and I always had mine in the next day. She thought that was great.

Frazz is soooo wrong. Know your audience. Most writing needs to be short, accurate, timely, and to-the-point. Novels make up a small minority of what is written. Even creative writing is done when it’s done. If the inspiration hits and the words flow – boom – done early.

This strip makes no sense to me.

I took up “story writing” as a pandemic hobby. I’m up to almost 400 pages of a story that could’ve concluded twice or thrice by now. I fell so in love with my characters, though, that I keep sending them into new directions. I (and my imaginary friends, the characters) are having a whole lot of fun. This project is nothing that will ever be published and probably never even shared. I can’t tell you if my writing is good, bad, or indifferent; I don’t even care. It has become my favorite reason to get my daily work done so I can get back to it.

Okay, I was an English major. I found/learned/surmised that what you had to communicate took precedence over how you said it. Too much polishing jeopardized whether you ever said it at all. Fine balance to be sure.

English class took up more of my time in terms of homework than any other subject. I HATED writing all those papers at the time, but development of those writing skills was probably more valuable than any other aspect of my education in the long run. I used to try to get those English compositions done and over with as soon as possible to not have them hanging over my head for a week, and so I was almost always turning them in several days – sometimes almost a week – early. My English teacher loved it!

I write now on the internet.

https://moovians.blogspot.com/2020/04/alternate-alley-oop-chapter-23-alley.html

SF/adventure/horror

As I often say …

Me know how write good.

This is true in engineering as well. One of Charles Akin’s rules of Spacecraft Development is that with unlimited time and budget an engineering team will produce exactly . . . nothing.