I have noticed that my most recent posts are getting shorter.
And that’s all I have for today. Thank you for reading!
Seriously, these posts have been getting shorter. And believe it or not, that’s by design. Since November 2011 I have published 1,050-some of these and some of them were real monsters, one over 1800 words. The last several posts have seen more modest 400 to 500 word counts.
Why the big change? I don’t know. Maybe I realized I don’t have that much to say, and I don’t need 1,000 words to say not much. Or maybe I realized people don’t have time to devote untold minutes to reading my blog posts. Let’s face it, I am not dispensing indispensable information. Maybe a little smile-inducing, head-scratching, or even thought-provoking. Indispensable, imperative, can’t do without? Nah.
If you make the trip to the Uplift! blog at the ROAMcare site, you might have realized those posts with few exceptions fall in the 500-700 word range. By design. The goal is to produce a piece that can be read in two to three minutes. You might also have noticed they tend to ask more questions than they answer. Again, design. We want you to be able to read them in two or three minutes, but we’d like you to think about them for days on end. And hopefully, in a more thought provoking than head scratching way. You decide what is important for you. Taking the most recent post as an example, you probably didn’t find freshly laid goose eggs in your back yard, but it could get you thinking about what wonders you have recently experienced. (Yes, you have. Take a minute and think about it)
Another reason why I’ve taken pains to keep things brief (and yes, they are pains because I can talk and talk and talk and talk for hours and hours on end and beyond), is advice I once saw from one of the master story tellers of our time, Charles Osgood, and finally decided to give it a whirl. (Young people, you have a computer, look him up.) For forty-six years he presented “The Osgood Files” (“Reports and reflections on humankind”). He described his own style as “Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs,” and went on to say, “There’s nothing that can’t be improved by making it shorter.”
Oh boy, was he right! At least as far as my writing goes. Sometimes I think back when I was teaching and to fil the standard college hour (40-45 minutes). I routinely covered so much that my printed notes would fill pages in a notebook. Today, a 30 minute presentation reduced to writing might fill two printed pages. And be more informative. Not to mention more fun!
Sometimes I think as I write fewer words, I find more things to say. But then I read more of other people’s words, and I find I’m saying just enough. I hope you agree and are happy enough with the words I choose.
Are you still wondering about those goose eggs I mentioned? They really are a wonder. You can read about them at The Egg Hunt. What wonderful things might you find in your world?
The Real Reality Show Blog 
Love this shift, Michael. I’ve been working on shortening up things as well. It somehow makes me do the hard work to find what is essential! Happy Monday!
Oh Wynne I think you called out the biggest reason to keep things short and simple – get right to what’s essential, and yes, it is hard work. Thank you for reading!!
I love that you refer to your longer pieces as “monsters”. The Osgood wisdom is fab…and I don’t disagree. Now I just need to remember it! 😜
Oh but they were monsters – large, ugly, and frightening!! And you don’t have to worry about remembering the Osgood wisdom. Your posts could be one hundred million words long and you’d still make every word interesting.
Oh good golly. I’m gonna get that tattooed somewhere…it’s the sweetest and/or most misguided compliment EVER. Thank you – either way! I’ll take it! 🥰😜🥰
Hi. My pieces have gotten shorter too. And I don’t publish as often as I once did. Signs of getting old!
You can put a better spin on it than that – signs of mellowing maturity.
😄
When I started blogging I wrote long posts, very wordy. But I made a decision one day to shorten my posts, all around 600 words now. Best decision, it allowed me to write less/blog faster and readers responded positively.
I’m wonder if we were to look at the first dozen posts and compare them to the most recent dozen of a handful of random bloggers, how often we’d recognize which belong to whom. I am betting a lot of people have adjusted styles and word counts. Naturally, short posts won’t work for everyone. Sometimes you need 1,000 words or more to express an idea, but my ideas aren’t that complicated! No, I’m happy with my petit-posts, A lot of good can come from writing fewer words.
What you do say, dear friend, is wise and witty and, like Goldilocks said, “just right”. You provoke a lot of thought–and giggles. Your ROAMcare site creates interesting challenges to ponder–and we could all do with more pondering. I, too, am a talker–I have more words than anyone wants to hear. Even when talking to a lot of people for my job, I still end up with too many at the end of the day. So sad.
I like the picture you painted Dayle – end up with too many words at the end of the day. I can picture a shopping bag full of words with no one to hear them. No, you know the “just right” amount to use. Whatever is left at the end of the day, you’ll find a way to use them.
You’re a truly gracious gentleman.