Short Vs. Long

Do you know the old saying, "I didn't have time to write you a short note so I wrote you a long one instead?" In other words, it takes more time to be succinct, to know exactly what you want to say, to choose your words, than it does to free associate. It's hard to be pithy.

Relative to other bloggers, my postings tend to be long. I know that most people who stumble across my blog will not bother to read everything I have to say -- they won't bother to scroll down. Or they'll click through without reading anything because there aren't any pictures.

But long and short need to be qualified by content or depth of meaning. Given a choice between a short note with no meaning versus a longer, well-written note with rich content, I prefer to run longer.

Here's another pithy old saw, "Don't bite off more than you can chew." In other words, keep it simple stupid. Because its not only about how much you can chew its also about how much your readers can swallow. Most readers can't swallow more than a few bites.

In France, to make goose liver pate, the hold the bird's mouth open and jam food down it's throat. Don't try this on your readers!

Based on the few number of hits and the short average amount of time a visitor spends on my blog over the past year, it is clear that my approach is not attracting and keeping readers. Coming soon... Pictures!