Some of my longest post’s ever have got the greatest email/comment responses though, so somebody’s reading them!

God Bless.

Your blog lives on your thoughts. You’re not writing for some paper with its editors and agenda. Did you read Mark Steyn’s outstanding essay on the death of the West? Vital, long yet sparse, no way to shorten it.

To thine own self be true!

If I want short ‘n’ punchy, I’ll go Instalurk (Home of the hanging comment and period of ellipsis. Random quote: “Heh”.). I come here for the longer stuff and the depth. So please (no offense and all due respect to Mr. Foster) don’t follow that advice!

I admit there’s a certain art to being succinct (one that I have trouble following!), but sometimes it’s fun to see the thoughts worked out rather than just the final product. Even if it makes the end product a little long. I like seeing the case built, I like seeing the sides explored. I like the detail. I like the meandering. Look, there are plenty of 3 liner or 2 paragraph folks blogging out there. Please, don’t be another face in the crowd. Contribute to the diversity of the blogosphere and keep doing what you do.

As an aside, one of my english teachers in high-school chuckled when I told him I actually liked all the digressions Melville took in Moby Dick. Guess the long style suits my entertainment needs.

I appreciate your long, thoughtful messages. I have some appreciation of the work and thought that goes into them, and I would hate to see them shortcut.

tequilamockingbird

Please carry on.

If I wanted short entries, I wouldn’t come here and I’d only read Instapundit. LOL

When I want a novel, I’m reluctant to settle for a short story. Same here, Ma’am. I like your posts because they speak to me. Not with a nudge. But with a conversation.

‘K?

Happy New Year!

“No.”

I like your posts. I can follow your process, hear your voice, weighing, sometimes agonizing over what you are saying. Your are a Thinker and an essayist. Don’t change.

Your pieces are intelligent, well written, thoughtful, neither boring nor self indulgent and - most importantly - they can persuade. To persuade someone who is bright and able to rethink things down to first cases you need to take them on a journey. A journey takes as long as it takes.

You don’t need to write Op-Ed pieces Neo. We’ve got plenty of them… more than we need. Keep writing essays. You’re very good at it.

It’s interesting that Bill Whittle, at ejectejecteject, has been able to gather quite a following with the combination of:
a)very long posts, and
b)fairly infrequent updates

…which suggests that the essay form is by no means dead.

Hmm. That might have been garbled in transmission. I’ll try again.

Hey Foster: shut yer piehole.

Now, Neo — as you were saying…

keep it up.

There’s the Glenn Reynolds snippit salted with Indeeds and other catch phrases which are find for bloggers who are not writers but merely pointers, but so what?

There’s the snippet, the short form, and the long form. The only blogger I know who is a genius in all three is Lileks, but he weight trains with about 1,245 columns a week.

Excuse me, Mr. Milton. We like Aereopagetica a lot. In fact we are going to base the Bill of Rights on it. But could you please cut it back to 300 words so we have time to read it. It is cutting into the time we set aside to watch Desperate Housewives.

I am also told my Engineering Reports are too long. I suppose I could cut them. But if all they want is half of a report, what are they going to do with half a building?

A: Long enough, but no longer.

Different people have different things to say and to different audiences. You are doing a great job, as are others who write shorter (and longer) posts. This is a good kind of diversity.

If you wrote more often and just as long it might be a problem. But you space ‘em out and give people time to digest them before you do the next one. I think that works fine. It’s what sets your blog apart and, as others have said, it’s one of the main reasons I come back to your site. There are plenty of short, pithy blogs out there. Your overall blog theme of change and transformation requires something different. You’re not giving headlines, or even commenting on them, per sé. To the extent you are, you are using them as examples in a discussion of much broader themes.

I say stay the course, and maybe throw the shorty-short types a bone now and then just to take the edge off. You can never please all of the people all of the time.

(See, I can’t keep it short either.)

By the way, your posts are short and punchy compared to Pundita. It’s all relative.

Heh.

There is a story told of a woman writing to her girlfriend also in the “writing” business. At the conclusion of her lengthy letter she added this post script.

I am sorry this is so long but I was in a hurry.

I am new to your blog but enjoy your perspective. Have a happy and enlightened New Year.

You could use an editor. We all could. Don’t emphasize shortness, emphasize review and quality.

I love your blog.

Please don’t change (as if you could).

Of course, I didn’t think Steven Den Beste’s posts were too long either…

Don’t worry about it Neo, the problem is with them. Not you. I don’t say to warriors and assassins, “your skills are great, but why don’t you use less ammunition and explosives?”.

Their skills are great precisely because they know how much they need or don’t need, not the bean counters in the back. If the bean counters want to dictate logistics, that is fine, but don’t blame the grunts when the base gets overrun.

Logistics is important precisely because it is to be used, not hoarded. Hoarded until it used, just as much as writing is to be read until understood.

Those with low comprehension scales or short attention spans, those unreflective and disinterested in using words to think for themselves, will always decry and feel uncomfortable reading something good and long. It wouldn’t be long, if it wasn’t good since people wouldn’t read it, making it short. If it wasn’t good, then the length wouldn’t matter, bad is bad regardless of the length. If people displace their dislike for hard thinking and long reading, unto the author, then that is entirely in their sphere of control.

The logic is quite unforgetable and unforgivable.

Am I a glutton for punishment–for both dishing it out, and for taking it?

Personally, I’ve always related that when you approach new thoughts, you take a very comprehensive and logical pathway towards the subject. Perhaps after you have brainstormed and redrafted your thoughts, then you might condense it. THe subjects you write on, are as much a learning experience to you as to your readers. Simply because you are the author, does not mean you always hold ultimate knowledge about the subject you choose to write, nor does it mean you automatically know how to describe it in the most succinct way. Therefore, having obtained that knowledge, you might then be able to condense it but not before. Because to describe the end goal, one must traverse the aeons between beginning and end. And that takes time, even if it all seemed timeless when at the end. To those who don’t have to traverse the void to get the description of the end, they find it inconvenient that your descriptions are not easily understood. Well, nothing worthwhile in life was ever easy. Perhaps if they traveled the Road of Wisdom, they might understand that at the end.