OK. I have it together now. No need to get excited. Just sit here, clear the mind, the content is in there. Just relax.
My compliments to any of you out there who have maintained an active blog for more than 3 months. Jesus, this coming up with Posts all the time is not as easy as it looks. And this from the perspective of ‘as long as there is a new Post once a week’ blogholder. But no one is holding a gun to my head… (‘hey theres an idea for a Post!)
SOMEONE IS HOLDING A GUN TO MY….
Sorry, forget it. Sure one of the 103,000,000 blog authors in the world today has already done the definitive, ‘Someone is holding a gun to my head’ treatment. Maybe there are some studies that I can cut and paste and fill up some of this white space and then I can call it a day and get back to my real life!
Alright, seriously now. I do mean my compliment to those of you who have the ability and talent (acquired or learned) to write something new and different and sometimes even interesting, Post after Post after Post/blog after blog after blog. Not bad. But since I am not ready to give up on this little blog of mine, I had better t t try to get it together and come up with a Post that will keep the crowdlette coming back for more.
Being that this is the Wakefield Doctrine (aka the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) I would do well to keep to the subject that I know best. (See? Right there! I don’t know much about grammar and good writing and all, but that last sentence had at least two tenses, and easily three pulperfects in it. Man, this is worse than the first time I recorded myself playing guitar along with Jimi Hendrix. Suffice it to say, if you were there you would not have had too much trouble telling us apart.)
This writing and grammar thing is really starting to annoy me. It is bad enough that I regret now that I did not take a typing class when I was in high school. (At my current age, in my high school years Typing Class was for people taking a Business curriculum, which meant you were going to be a secretary which meant you were a girl. That simple, end of cultural subtext). But with this damn blogging thing, I am being forced to confront the fact that I do not have mad writing skills. I should have paid attention in my English classes. (Look, it was the 60s when I was in high school, how cool is that?) But the inescapable fact remains that the skill set I would value the most this October morning is not how to play the opening riff of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. Its funny about how people, at least in the current (american) culture, we seem to have an expectation to be able to do certain things well, just because we think we can do them at all. By this I mean singing and writing. Most of us know that we can sing our favorite song in the car, on the way to work, therefore I think we all equate that with being a singer. Writing, the same. I can, with the help of spellcheck and a lot of proof reading, write a report at work, so how hard can it be to be a writer?
(I have resisted the impulse to hit Preview to see if I’m down far enough on this page to call it a day.) But anyway, you are here because you want to know all about the Wakefield Doctrine. Right?
The Wakefield Doctrine will cause you to see the world in a slightly different manner. Nothing earth-shaking, no flashes of light; ‘oh my god I understand now’ will not be on your lips. What will happen if you read most of this blog and the associated pages will be that you might find yourself saying, ‘that person is such a roger‘, or you might find yourself thinking, ‘here comes so-an-so what a scott he is’ or you could think, ‘shit, I’ll bet I’m one of those clarks the Doctrine is talking about.’
If this happens to you, I have succeeded. If it does not then I have failed. If you have a question about the Doctrine, leave a Comment or email or whatever the hell people do around here. I will get back to you as soon as I finish my Adult Education class, “You too Can Write Like The Prose’, that I am taking at my little local high school.
About clarkscottroger
But you must do this thing. It is your “note taking”.
Besides, I thoroughly enjoy reading the damn thing.
Nice work there, binyon. A Harvard Dean couldn’t have put it better. Now get your ass back to school. And ” Sunshine of your Love?”
That’s No.2; every kid with a four-dollar strat copy knows that you start with ” Smoke on the Water”. The old school list would have followed with Hendrix, but the new thinking might jump to AC/DC. And speaking of…where’s Jimi in all this? I say he was a Clark who had no idea that there was a brake pedal on the damned thing.-( from the Roger, in case you hadn’t guessed)
No, I did not make that statement.
Actually being a little older, the first of the giant guitar music was Cream, Hendrix and Led Zepplin.
(AC/DC? in the 60’s?)
Yes, Jimi he a clark. I have a clip of his interview with Dick Cavett (you have to sit through a whole bunch of Dick Cavett being the ‘intelligent Johnny Carson’.) that is on the ‘By these Names Page (subsection clarks).
But the thing about Hendrix specifically and clarks generally is that when you watch him you are sure that if you were there next him, you could pass your hand through him like some f*cked up tholian web thing. A good clark, you can practically see through.
As someone who has tried and failed before in the blogosphere, what it comes down to for me is pace, a determined patience, and passion.
There are times when I have started out wanting to write something rich and earth-shattering every time, and I crumpled under the unrealistic expectations and pressure I put on myself for perfection.
I have also sat with the proverbial gun to my head to get something out, with the “people are expecting it, they keep asking when I am going to post again, etc.” going on in my head. And I had to really embrace patience with it. As an aspiring writer with dreams of manuscripts and publishing contracts, I know that, at least for me, when I try and force it, I get writer’s block. When I take the pressure off and have patience mixed with the determination to move forward, I flow better.
The last one for me, which you seem to definitely have, is passion. The passion is what makes me want to write, to contribute, to participate in the garage band of bloggers.
When I decided to start my latest blog, I checked a book out on blogging put out by the Huffington Post. It really helped take the pressure off my blogging shoulders and breathe easy when I read a part by a prominent writer about the fact that each blog entry does not have to be a crafted and perfect piece of prose, an essay to win the Pulitzer Prize. Reading that, it gave me the permission to post a sentence if it says what I want, to drop some profanity, to really put my SELF into it.
The difference for me this time is that I’m having fun and the pressure is off. And my blog is beginning to shape up into something I am really excited about.
Keep up the good work! As a fellow blogger, I know the feeling.
Thank you for the feedback.
It is interesting, the difference in the value we place on advice from a person who means well and a person who has actually done the thing, experienced the process (in question.) Like being on stage/performing, anyone can imagine doing it but it ends up only a few actually do it, and it is the doing that matters. The feeling of hitting the ‘Publish’ key.
Anyway, I try to keep a balance, but for me now the pressure I put on myself is the ‘Have I made this clear enough’?
Shit, I hate the feeling I get when I write a comment/reply and then see (by the follow-up) that I failed to make my point.
With the Doctrine, I have to resist the extra negative energy that is in my head, ‘hey this theory of yours that you know is true for all, no one is getting it’!
But oddly enough what helps is that I remind myself that I got no writing skills. As much as I believe that I am able to hold my own intellectually, I am fortunate that I did not start this thing with the assumption of the capability to write a blog from the start.
Actually this writing thing has developed into what has been enjoyable about the process; trying, and at times, succeeding in conveying a thought/idea to a total stranger in a written form.
Anyway, thanks again for the feedback.
The theory of clarks, scotts and rogers is calling. And I just thought of another way of esplainin’ it in a Post.
I believe that I must find a way to get the first time visitor to gain sufficient understanding in the first visit so that as they read the pages (of the blog) they will become more grounded in the way of seeing the world that is suggested.
(What do you think about a static front page with the core tenents, with other pages for the posts etc. As opposed to what I am doing now, which from a ‘first impression’ point of view is only as effective as the most recent Post?)