tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post744422903934466417..comments2024-03-18T16:55:31.971+00:00Comments on This Space: This is not a projectStephen Mitchelmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-37588714238933238052009-05-16T12:49:00.000+01:002009-05-16T12:49:00.000+01:00Thanks Rhys. You might like to know that I did the...Thanks Rhys. You might like to know that I did the final year of a part-time MA whilst working full-time. Following that course was the best thing I ever did as I could follow my own interests. Perhaps it's a matter of finding the right course (mine was Modern European Literature!).Stephen Mitchelmorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-53555479514543177772009-05-15T18:03:00.000+01:002009-05-15T18:03:00.000+01:00Hi Stephen,
I empathize. I generally write a blog...Hi Stephen,<br /><br />I empathize. I generally write a blog to keep the mind ticking, and use it as a means to sift and examine any material that interests me. But the blog is ultimately something of a frustration.<br /><br />I'm hoping to enrol in a course of postgraduate study, while currently working full-time at an administrative post. Often I'll daydream that I can fulfil certain aspirations by looking at Kafka, or T. S. Eliot, or Wallace Stevens, who held down dayjobs while pondering the big questions. But the reality is far more mundane than that: I'm not yet able to write university projects that attract me, so I'm confined to expressing myself in other ways.<br /><br />I think that blogs can provide an excellent forum for self-expression: from academic-standard essays, to approachable reviews, to daily observations. The medium gives people a voice. Simon Sellars created the J. G. Ballard website Ballardian.com as a means of developing his theoretical ideas. The humble website, which began with all the straightforward formal characteristics of a blog, blossomed overnight into an authoritative resource.<br /><br />I count This Space among those blogs that offers something interesting, while provoking discussion. It's not a project in a traditional sense, and it doesn't obey many of the hallmark traits of an average web journal, but a community is springing up around it.<br /><br />Blogs tend to co-exist among their creator's other 'more legitimate' projects, but I think they are also legitimate projects in their own way. Their form gives notice to details you don't tend to read elsewhere, and to me that can only be a good thing.<br /><br />All the best,<br />RhysRhys Tranterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17324349620090364098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-26423730958773303672009-05-15T15:53:00.000+01:002009-05-15T15:53:00.000+01:00It is a rhetorical question Nigel - raising the is...It is a rhetorical question Nigel - raising the issue of my frustration/disappointment/commitment to the form.Stephen Mitchelmorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-80226200447054184262009-05-15T15:41:00.000+01:002009-05-15T15:41:00.000+01:00"Isn't a blog post just a carefree alternative to ..."Isn't a blog post just a carefree alternative to something more considered: a formal review, an essay?"<br /><br />Surely a blog post can be as ill or deeply considered a piece as its author wants it to be? Or is capable of making it. Why not a formal review or essay? Or are you saying that in order for writing to be so it must appear in a'conventional' media venue? Must be vetted and/or edit, approved by others?NigelBealehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06094387597632333192noreply@blogger.com