Words in a hurry

I heard on TV or a DVD or read recently (my mind is still foggy with meds) something that set me to pondering.

Yet again. I am always in a ponder of some sort.

Anyway, the comment was, "Journalism is literature in a hurry."

I was so astounded by that statement that I wrote it with a blue ink pen on the back of my hand (because that was the only thing handy at that moment) so I wouldn't forget it. No matter the daily showers, the adage stuck to the back of my left hand for a few days. So I memorized it.

But I think the statement is true.

My blogs are too long and drawn-out and filled with all manner of ponderings and posturings and I spend days sometimes hashing out what I want to say and take too much time to say it.

But when I worked as a journalist and director of a newsroom of a weekly newspaper of about 25,000 circulation for nearly eight years, I could easily pound out 2,000 words a day on my keyboard...Stories ranging from political elections to a horse giving birth to twin foals, a cat stuck in a tree, a new house and vineyard in the hinterlands of Clark County, sex offenders, lavender gardens, murderers, city council and school board meetings and local crime and car accidents...all in one day.

So what happened now? Why are my blogs so long and tedious?

Because literature is not journalism in a hurry.