The song writer John Prine died recently of Covid complications. He had written hundreds of songs about life, fun, folly and pain and was a true blessing to the music world. He will be missed, but his music lives on in our heads and in our hearts. Linda was big fan and one of his records was her very first purchase after her college age brother exposed her to John's music while she was in junior high school. What a great way to start your music collection? Linda has been to a lot of his shows over the last 25 years and I have enjoyed several as well. His shows were well produced, everyone in the band wore a suit on and you really got to hear the music and enjoy the crowd singing along to his lyrics. They were really good shows. There will be a big hole in Americana music for a while, no one is going to take his place, he was too big of a talent. Rest in Peace John Prine.
I have been writing this blog for several years and as I review older material, I comment to myself "self, you are getting better at writing". To get better a something, typically you need to practice that activity or participate for a period of time and you improve-- you hope. But, I see some improvement with sentence structure and different ways to carry across a point without being repetitive and boring. This improvement has also carried over into my working life, where I do mostly technical writing. I do get to occasionally write a piece to convince others of my point of view or general direction a project needs to take. They do not always buy into my take, but it is well written and logical from years of practicing.
In high school and college, I took English because it was required and did not like to write or compose papers. The entire process was just too hard--actually creating stuff in your head and then writing it on a piece of paper for other people to criticize. I was lazy about those sorts of things and I also was not really motivated to improve. I was into the sciences and mathematics, English and composition were just something to skate through and avoid if at all possible. Guess what? the rest of the world did pay attention to the written word and if you were good at it, people paid attention. But I like science! My early works were lousy.
In college at Miami University I had to take English my Freshman year, 9 quarter hours to get that requirement handled. I passed my first two quarters and in my Spring quarter flunked the class. Shit! Yep, I had professor that just did not like my stuff at all. I could not figure her out and just struggled to get an idea of how to pass that class. We read some strange books that were just not of any interest to the future science star studying paper machine stuff next door. The make up semester--was with a really interesting professor that had a reading list of materials that pissed off a lot of people and were really good books. In one book, this group finds the body of Jesus in the basement of the Vatican-- hell of a premise for a book and it brought out the haters. The book was fun and entertaining. I enjoyed the class and passed with a B. Did I get that much better at writing--no way. What happened?? I got a better audience, plus I was year old and was in the class with the kids just getting to school and evidently I figured it out quicker than they. OK, at is a wonderful story, but in what context does it mean anything??
Audience is what it is all about. Every time I write anything for work or personal life, I always ask who is the audience?? Engineers need technical details, creative people just skip over that part. So I work on the audience really hard and try to make my stuff fit the audience. I used to do a lot of technical training at Buckman and basically redid hundreds of pages of PowerPoint materials to stay current and to try and connect with the audience I was training. This blog has an interesting audience and I write it with the thought that my Mom and Mother-in-law will read it and I make sure that they will understand it and not get mad about the content.
Secondly, have something to say. Get your opinion out there and back it up. Not name calling or bullying, but an opinion about someone or thing that is important to you and your life. Make some predictions about things that you feel is going to happen. If you are around long enough, you have seen enough bad human behavior to be able to predict when the shit will hit the fan again. Plus you may be interesting. Hopefully I am that.
Stay healthy and I hope to see some of you at the races next year.
I have been writing this blog for several years and as I review older material, I comment to myself "self, you are getting better at writing". To get better a something, typically you need to practice that activity or participate for a period of time and you improve-- you hope. But, I see some improvement with sentence structure and different ways to carry across a point without being repetitive and boring. This improvement has also carried over into my working life, where I do mostly technical writing. I do get to occasionally write a piece to convince others of my point of view or general direction a project needs to take. They do not always buy into my take, but it is well written and logical from years of practicing.
In high school and college, I took English because it was required and did not like to write or compose papers. The entire process was just too hard--actually creating stuff in your head and then writing it on a piece of paper for other people to criticize. I was lazy about those sorts of things and I also was not really motivated to improve. I was into the sciences and mathematics, English and composition were just something to skate through and avoid if at all possible. Guess what? the rest of the world did pay attention to the written word and if you were good at it, people paid attention. But I like science! My early works were lousy.
In college at Miami University I had to take English my Freshman year, 9 quarter hours to get that requirement handled. I passed my first two quarters and in my Spring quarter flunked the class. Shit! Yep, I had professor that just did not like my stuff at all. I could not figure her out and just struggled to get an idea of how to pass that class. We read some strange books that were just not of any interest to the future science star studying paper machine stuff next door. The make up semester--was with a really interesting professor that had a reading list of materials that pissed off a lot of people and were really good books. In one book, this group finds the body of Jesus in the basement of the Vatican-- hell of a premise for a book and it brought out the haters. The book was fun and entertaining. I enjoyed the class and passed with a B. Did I get that much better at writing--no way. What happened?? I got a better audience, plus I was year old and was in the class with the kids just getting to school and evidently I figured it out quicker than they. OK, at is a wonderful story, but in what context does it mean anything??
Audience is what it is all about. Every time I write anything for work or personal life, I always ask who is the audience?? Engineers need technical details, creative people just skip over that part. So I work on the audience really hard and try to make my stuff fit the audience. I used to do a lot of technical training at Buckman and basically redid hundreds of pages of PowerPoint materials to stay current and to try and connect with the audience I was training. This blog has an interesting audience and I write it with the thought that my Mom and Mother-in-law will read it and I make sure that they will understand it and not get mad about the content.
Secondly, have something to say. Get your opinion out there and back it up. Not name calling or bullying, but an opinion about someone or thing that is important to you and your life. Make some predictions about things that you feel is going to happen. If you are around long enough, you have seen enough bad human behavior to be able to predict when the shit will hit the fan again. Plus you may be interesting. Hopefully I am that.
Stay healthy and I hope to see some of you at the races next year.
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