A missing post

Last night's post has gone missing. More precisely, I decided to take it off-line. My apologies to Niar who had already commented.

I took this action for two reasons.

First, the post mixed together several things perhaps better dealt with separately. Secondly, I felt that it might be misconstrued.

We all exercise a degree of self-censorship in what we write. I am no exception.

As an observer of myself, I continue to find interest in the way the process of blogging forces me to think about what I write, to refine my views, to think about the way others may read what I write.

All writing forces thought. However, the process varies between writing types.

In my second column for the Armidale Express I got a name wrong. I picked up the error after the paper had gone to press, but just before it hit the streets. I apologised to the person in question and no harm was done. This led me to muse at the start of the next column:

This business of writing a weekly column is proving harder than expected.

In blogging, length depends upon purpose. In a column, the length is fixed.

In blogging, if you make a mistake you can correct it. In a column, the mistake is there in cold print for all time, or at least until all copies of the paper decay!

Two different forms of writing, two very different disciplines.

The issues I mentioned in passing in the missing post are, I think, interesting. However, I think that they are best dealt with individually.

Postscript

Now I have to apologise to Ramana as well! He must have commented just about the time I was taking the post off-line.

It's an interesting reflection of the immediacy of the blogging world. I didn't post until quite late last night, and it was quite early this morning when I took the post down. I had far to little sleep, but that's another story. So two comments in the few hours the post was on line.

Niar, Ramana, I haven't lost your comments. I will bring the essence on line later.