I don’t have anything in particular to say, but I just feel like writing more. Maybe I’m keyed up about writing because I took a little hiatus from blogging - I went 11 days between posts on my Wordpress blog and six days between posts on this blog. Since one of my goals is to post something every day I figure I should go with it when I feel like writing more.

I have noticed that my writing has improved overall, even when I revert to the slow-and-deliberate process. I’ve posted some comments on the New York Times website recently that, I have to say, are pretty good examples of succinct writing. This is something that marks my writing style in general, but I’ve had an easier time of it. There is something about the practice of freewriting that has helped me to become more thoughtfully descriptive. For example, here is what I posted with regard to a story on Pres. Trump’s fucked up linguistic habits.

Referring to Pres. Trump’s bullying behavior as branding is an insult to people who do marketing for a living. No doubt he acquired some marketing skills as a businessperson, but Pres. Trump’s infantile way of “branding” his opponents is more akin to the practices of a sociopath with a branding iron than to a politician or marketing professional - his only intent is to gleefully cause pain.

I particularly like the “sociopath with a branding iron” observation. I don’t know why, though, a comment like this only warrants 12 recommendations while others get more than a thousand. Personally, I think my comment is better written than most of the others I have read, even the popular ones. But this just highlights the biggest mystery of online writing: how does one get others to pay attention. I know I could benefit from attaching my Wordpress blog to social media (the freewriting blog is purposefully meant to be unread), but I’m not a big fan of self-promotion or of social media in general. It would be nice, though, to find some sort of public forum for my writing.

But for now, I am content to write only for myself. I do feel like my writing has improved in general. I need to move toward a more substantial type of writing at some point, but for now I will continue to work on the style of my writing rather than the substance. The style will ultimately make the substance more impactful.

This is the same approach I am taking with my guitar playing, by the way. I have been focusing on playing in the Mississippi delta style not because I want to play exclusively in that style - though I wouldn’t mind, really - but rather because I want the delta blues to infuse everything I play. Imagine being able to play jazz with a delta blues aesthetic. Now that would be something. In fact, that’s a lot of what I hear in James Blood Ulmer’s playing - very old-style blues playing in an avant garde context. When I saw Ulmer play at UMass a few years ago I was at first shocked by how limited the drummer was until I started to appreciate the overall raw aesthetic of what he was doing. Ulmer’s playing bears more in common with Son House than with Wes Montgomery, but he still has a rough sophistication to his playing that defies and complements to more common approaches to jazz guitar. In fact, I should spend some more time listening to Ulmer’s playing given that he is already realizing a combination of playing styles I aspire to produce. Let me go do just that right now.