Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Daily Discipline Mark Twain evinced disdain for most everyone he encountered in The Innocents Abroad. Peoples, places, and traditions are all subject to his withering commentary, as he takes a 19th-century trip to Europe and the Holy Land, offering descriptions that reflect a 19th century sensibility. Yet no group comes up as more repellent to him than those of his own fellow travelers foolish enough to inform the American legend that they, like him, were maintaining daily logs. Samuel Clemens knew well the psychological torments that accompany the serious writer along his or her way to finding a voice then acting on it. He knew the iron discipline of writing something every day was a fundamental, if wretched, task inherent to a writer's life. He knew that very few folks were up to it. Witness The Innocents Abroad... "...some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them down under the swaying lamps and for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals," Twain writes in Chapter 4. "Alas that journals so voluminously begun should come to so lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them did!" He continues, "...only those rare creatures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination may hope to venture upon so tremendous and enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat." There's more, and well worth reading. Blogging appears to be the natural medium for all who aspire to Twainhood. My guess is that he would be uproariously amused by the phenomenon. Blogging's powerful combination of writer-friendly, budget-conscious software and the theoretical ability to syndicate blogs to the far corners of the world manifestly gives it the potential to inflict shameful defeat on us all. 6:39:40 PM    comment []

Start With My Bio Roger Stephen Strukhoff has spent the last quarter-century as a writer, publisher, and entrepreneur in the information technology business. He is now semi-retired, serves as an advisor and columnist with SYS-CON Media, and is more or less free to take on writing and consulting jobs that fuel his passion. He's based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He worked as an editor at Miller Freeman, as an executive at IDG, then co-founded and recently sold a custom publishing business. He's done work for the top companies in the business. He's launched magazines, websites, trade shows, and serious corporate communications initiatives. He speaks English well and six other languages very badly. He's now grappling with Turkish and Urdu. Roger plays the piano and trumpet well enough to impress his relatives and friends, and golf well enough to impress nobody. He's traveled on business to many of the greyest, dullest cities in the world, as always carrying a passport that reveals he was born in Iowa. (He was raised in Illinois.) Roger can be counted on to discuss webcentric computing, "classical" music, career arcs, most sports, authors he has read, and public transportation with a modicum of intelligence, a hint of unbridled opinion, and a sense of humor that many people enjoy and others do not. He can be reached at strukhoff@yahoo.com         10:26:21 AM    comment []