Have you ever written something on a blog about grape jelly only to come back an hour later, read your comments and realize you were wrong – that you actually wrote the post about peanut butter?
It doesn’t happen to me often, but it happens.
Blog comments offer us an incredible view of what we said, how we said it and how it lands with our audience. Did we, in fact, communicate the message we were hoping to deliver? Did we sound angry when we meant to sound passionate? Negative when we meant to be realistic?
What an opportunity to learn, to be critiqued in the pseudo-privacy of our own blog’s backend.
When this happens, I go back and reread what I wrote. I’m curious to see if I can find the place(s) that led my readers to that other place. I try to figure out how I can do it better next time…or if my readers tapped into something more fascinating than I could have, originally, imagined – which is quite often the case.
Julie,
You know you bring up a good point. In writing, sometimes the perceived meaning of a word or words is different from the writer’s point.
Food for thought.
And I appreciate your “remedy” to the situation. Go back and reread the comment to see where the words could have been interpreted a different way thus leading to a different outcome.
Nice simple but to the point post for writers.
Thanks Julie!
Sincerely,
Teresa Morrow
It’s that instant feedback reflecting back what we said, whether it’s what we meant or not! Like that line in “When Harry Met Sally,” “She orders her food in such a way that the chef didn’t even know how good it could be.”
Kind of like how novelists read reviews or critiques of their work and wonder how on earth the reader got THAT from THEIR book … except, they have to wait months to hear, and bloggers get that right away.
Deb- EXACTLY, hence my title. And my addiction to blogging. I’m an instant feedback/satisfaction kind of girl.
Of course, if the response is going to be BAD, I’d really rather wait… (grin)
Creativity and Communication – that’s social media at it’s best.
I’m always amazed at interpretation. It’s especially thrilling when someone comes up with something completely valid but so not what I had in mind….
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