'Are you on fire for GOD, Scotty?' 'YES SIR I AM ON FIRE' by Kara
Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 9:35 AM

I've never been sure how much of my 'own voice' to use when I write. Here all over the place, it's okay. It's my site, it's meant for entertainment, and if I feel like being a bitch (on the fictional side or in rants), I am perfectly allowed to. But when I was in school, I had various professors who would either praise me or berate me for my voice in my papers. Some thought it was great; others told me it wasn't 'academic' enough ... to which I always thought, Well, if I'm writing a paper on Henry IV Part 1, I'm going to need all the help I can get to make it interesting enough to read, aren't I?

It falls to me now to do some actual writing for the site I work for. I mean, I do a lot of writing for them, just of different sorts and in smaller chunks. Usually it's ad copy or reformatting other people's content. Which is not as tiresome as it sounds. Ad copy is not exactly high art, but (much like with Henry V) I take it upon myself to make it a bit more 'grabbing' than someone else might. If there's something I don't like about the way a certain thing is generally written, well, I'm in a position to make it neato. You should see some of the stuff my manager's let me get away with.

On rare occasions, which I intend to make less rare, I need to supply some unique content to the site. I could do this one of two ways: I could ask someone else to write it, or I could write it myself. Last time I asked for help with that, I got pretty much squat back (no offense -- after all, no one was getting paid). So #2 seems to be the answer, at least to the point of one article.

Here's the thing, though. Can you imagine me writing long articles for a family-friendly site? I thought not. I don't think my style is inherently opposed to such a format, but it's a matter of 'watching' myself. I can say whatever I fucking well please here, but it's not really about that. I have no idea how accessible the way I write would be to our sort of audience.

But I don't want to sound stilted. It's a bit of a bugger, I don't mind telling you, and I've been spending a bit of time at work trying to figure out how I come across to our demographic (because our demographic is very different to my demographic). Conversational style isn't bad. At least, I've never thought so; many professors disagree. And I'm not writing anything factual. I can find factual articles. I'm trying to add in stories, or opinions of a non-threatening-to-housewives nature. You lot are reading a comic about a green-haired girl in a super-suit beating up giant aliens. As much as I love you all, I can't use you to judge this sort of thing.

Tonikaku, it's getting written, one way or another. I suppose when it's done I can push it around, here and elsewhere, and we'll see how different (if at all) my personal-site style differs from my work-site style. I'd like to think that, minus being checked for profanity and use of words like tonikaku, it will be little to no change at all.

I mean, if you guys actually take an interest in back-to-school tips for parents and all that.

If you have been, la la la ...