When I was posting to this site with Blogger, and when the blog portion of the site was about 250 pixels wide, my posts were much shorter. Now they’re longer, sometimes much longer — this isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it illustrates the by-now-old saw that the medium is the message. In contrast to Blogger, Movable Type practically begs for more words for each post.

The basic version of Blogger (read: not Blogger Pro) has just one text entry for each field, where MT has three: the entry body (the heart of each post, and equivalent to Blogger’s sole field), an extended entry field (where bloggers can go on and on) and an excerpt field (to summarize those super long entries). What’s more, each post now has its very own page, where once they used to all sit together on the main page or on a monthly archive page. I mean, MT is just begging for logorrhea.

Writing for Designing for Writing

This was a factor in both the designs for versions Six.0 and Six.5. As I developed both, I adjusted my writing habits to suit the kind of layout that I was constructing, and the layouts that I constructed in turn influenced the content I produce. In fact, since getting Six.5 implemented, I’ve definitely felt compelled to write more for each post than ever before.

Though this seems like a gradual kind of change, it’s actually fairly marked. For instance, I no longer feel comfortable composing posts that simply refer to other links, feeling that the content I introduce here must contain its own inherent value. Whether successful or not, I’ve really tried to challenge myself by creating actual content and real commentary, rather than the off-the-cuff, sometimes knee-jerk witticisms that I have been guilty of in the past.

The no-value-add kind of content has been relegated to the section I call “Elsewhere,” which is found at the bottom of the home page. Even that section, which when I first began it was little more than very simple links, has started to take on more text, as I am occasionally writing very brief qualifying remarks for the items I post there.

All of which means that I am doing way more writing than ever before. It may bore most everyone else, but it definitely feels good to be productive in a way that is not beholden to commercial interests. I suppose the real question is: can I keep it up?