● Lady Percy moves me - might she move you? CLICK TO FIND OUT
● Plus my novels, stories, verse, vulgar interests, apologies, and singing.
● Most posts are 300 words. I respond to all comments/re-comments.
● See Tone Deaf in New blogger.


Saturday 31 August 2013

Too big a calling card?

Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg, proved to be an absorbing movie, admirably conveying the cramped, unhygienic way people lived and worked in the mid-nineteenth century. Not least in the House of Representatives which looked like an East End pub on Christmas Eve. And while Daniel Day-Lewis was as good as anybody you'll ever see in the cinema he was well supported by actors with lesser names.

Lincoln often manipulated people via anecdote, one of them especially telling, I thought. Some politician apologised for producing a lengthy tract. In his defence, he said, "I was too lazy to make it shorter."

I reflected on my self-imposed 300-word limit and felt briefly smug. Alas the moment was only too brief. My posts may be  kept to 300 words but my comments on others' blogs often run on and on. Is there a parallel here reflecting the laws of hospitality? Am I risking outstaying my welcome with this grandiloquence? Is it the equivalent of cutting myself a huge slice of cake at someone else's afternoon tea?

I could say my Linkspeople are good listeners. Put perhaps I'm not giving them any alternative. One of those matters I ponder at at 3 am under the wing-beat of the Angel of Death. The conclusions are  pessimistic but at least dawn is always welcome.
  
WIP Second Hand (30,694 words)
(In the customer services section) there were even gentle hints about make-up and a tidier hair-style. Plus a new level of formality from the women who’d worked alongside her at the tills - no longer Frankie she was now Miss Embery. Lorne warned her not to lose her temper with customers who came in to complain but Francine enjoyed these encounters most of all. Restraint, like revenge, was a response best practised cold.

7 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the wonderful book! I finished it few days ago and can't get it out of my head. Hope magic
    in movie. ...
    the movie fifty shades

    I am awaiting for the release of movie Fifty shades of grey...Soon....
    Awesome book By E L James...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for the wonderful book! I finished it few days ago and can't get it out of my head. Hope magic
    in movie. ...
    the movie fifty shades

    I am awaiting for the release of movie Fifty shades of grey...Soon....
    Awesome book By E L James...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well I never!

    Meanwhile I don't think you should worry about limits when visiting or even in Tone Deaf. The subject matter and habit seems to bring posts and comments to a natural conclusion. Do you often find that you have to count the number of words in your posts? Let joy be unconfined.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I found this Lincoln quote.

    “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

    I can’t say that I entirely agree, knowing that I have many times spoken out and made a fool of myself, and being half aware beforehand of that being the likely outcome. I reckon the quote has more about trying to be amusing rather than being seriously philosophical.

    We have the cliché sayings that carry some truth:

    Nothing ventured nothing gained.

    Faint heart never... (my version of that one is too rude to finish).

    Nobody gets respect for remaining silent, and if you are identified as foolish you still have the possibility of defending yourself.

    As far as length is concerned I try to follow your example, but have no hesitation if I need another fifty words to ensure clarity and understanding.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Joe: I don't count the words as such. I write them in Notebook and then transfer them to Word which counts them for me. I also adjust the overrun by editing the post in Word, watching the indulgent total gradually shrink to the comforting 300.

    I agree that the post-plus-comments may bring about a natural conclusion. My worry is that my comments on others' posts may start up other hares ad infinitum.

    Sir Hugh: See subsequent post.

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  6. Blaise Pascal said that first, I think, about not having time to write a shorter one.

    Why haven't you sent me a copy of 50 Shades then?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lucy: It's an automatic spammy sort of thing. No human involved. I may in the end have to introduce WV

    ReplyDelete