I recently gutted my RSS reader of a few dozen writer blogs and a few select agent blogs because the effort to keep up with all of the linguistic confusion was reaching critical mass. Few writers actually write in their blogs; there’s always some urgent contest, a vomit-dump of acronyms in every post, people scheming like crafty lepers for Twitter followers, links to some site or industry post or to nowhere about something I really really absolutely need to check out. It’s like walking in on the middle of a conversation between: if you stick around for a bit you’ll understand what’s going on, but if they’re utilizing their own amalgamated verbiage then you should immediately abandon all hope.
Being in control of language, a skill every writer needs to have, doesn’t mean one has to achieve social chaos through the interconnected anarchy of the internet. Feel free to throw mud made of clauses and commas at the wall, but not so much URLs and hashmarked ridiculousness. There’s beauty in restraint; a respectable modesty in finesse and the fine touch. Remember when Flash started out? It was overused simply because people could overuse it, and most of the results were ugly on one end and browser-crashing on the other. Finally the dust settled and the best thing it’s used for is link carousels, Youtube, and Farmville. It looks as if some of us are drunk on code-lust.
Really, writers, do what you want with your own blog. If there’s any place any of us should indulge our druthers it’s the internet. But decide whether you’d like to be a writer or a blogger. I’d like to think there is a difference.