140 Characters Or Less

Why blog?

People use blogs to share their knowledge with other people.

What do I know?

Not much, I'll admit. But, nearing twenty years of age, what can I know? I may be relatively book smart, but what do I know about life? Very little.

So why the hell am I blogging?

Expression is an art form. Whether conveyed through music, painting, sculpting, acting, dancing, singing, poetry, or film making - expression holds resonance with people. I cannot promise that I will express myself in an artistic way, but I intend to express myself as best I can.

I am the quintessential "struggling slashy." What does that mean? I am a struggling singer / actress / writer / dancer / ect. I have several talents, but struggle to make an ends meet at any of them. Maybe someday I'll succeed in at least one area. Or maybe I'll forever remain one hopeful face in a casting call of thousands. Only time will tell. But for now, I mean to express myself.

Some days I might put up a short story, other days I may rant about nothing. But if you stick with me, I might even get you thinking (heaven forbid!).

Today's random ranting:

Back in the day it took time for people to communicate with one another. Paper and ink were expensive and then had be posted, where people then waited weeks, even months, for a response. In today's day and age, communication is delivered in the blink of an eye. Now, you would think that, given the technology, we would be sharing more information with each other, not less. But this is not the case.

Text messages, Facebook, Twitter - all only permit so many characters per message. In an age where we should be expanding our intelligence through this communication, we are instead, stunting the growth of expansion in small text boxes.

Now, I know I'm beginning to sound all preachy (which is not anything that anyone wants to hear), I only mean to point out the backwards way of our culture.

Is our language dying?

I cannot help but think this every time I hear mention of Twitter. How long until 140 characters becomes 100? Then 50? 25? How long until we no longer write things down for seeming superfluous.

So how do we keep language alive? Books are still popular, I doubt they shall ever go out of style (even after we condense them to 9 point font on our phones). But only a small portion of us college students have any interest in preserving language.

In the dumb-bell GE-required English 1 class I had to take, I had fellow student once comment on a paper of mine, "I think you should put a synopsis of who Jane Austen is in the beginning because I don't think anyone knows who that is."

I think poor Jane rolled over in her grave right then.

Is the problem a lack of education in the masses?

One of the reasons I have so much respect for J.K. Rowling stems from what she was able to accomplish with her "Harry Potter Series." Rowling got an entire generation of children interested in reading.

I can only hope that I have half her good luck with my sorry excuse for a book. If you've made this far to the page, I'm amusing that you personally know me and that you know I've written a book (and am currently 442 pages into its sequel). Speaking about my book, I have sent a query letter and the first chapter to the agent I am most interested in. I sincerely hope she is interested in what I have to offer (after all, all friends and family who have read it seem sincerely interested in what happens to my characters). But we shall see. I keep reminding myself, Rowling got rejected twelve times before finally getting published - so I must keep patient and keep trying, no matter how many times I'm rejected.

Goodness, I think I've taken up enough space for now. Next time, I swear, my ranting will not be quite as long. Who knows? Maybe I'll put up some sample work of mine to make up for today's diatribe.