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Monday, June 09, 2008

Repeat after me

As I wade through my archives I've discovered a disturbing trend in my blog posts. I repeat myself more than I was consciously aware of.

This annoys me. Because I get impatient when someone tells me the same story more than once or repeats a joke they told me a few weeks ago. I'm ashamed to say I get irritated talking to me 83-year old mother and she repeats something she has told me several times (i.e. my birth was unplanned and she had really hoped for a girl). And I apologize if you've heard me harp on that before.

See what I mean.

Oh I suppose it doesn't really matter since very few people have probably read most of my posts and realize that I do have a tendency to repeat myself. But it annoys me.

Part of it is my journalism training. You write a story and repeat facts with the assumption that no one reading the story would know those facts regardless of how long the story has been in the headlines. It helps establish continuity. It's a very linear form of storytelling. It allows the reader to resestablish how you got to where you are today by recounting the facts (repetive or not) of what happened yesterday.

I'm rationalizing why I repeat myself. Sometimes I just repeat myself because I forget I've written the same thing before. Sometimes I repeat myself because it is comfortable and familar. Sometimes I just repeat myself.

Sometimes I just repeat myself.

As I wade through my archives I've discovered a disturbing trend in my blog posts. I repeat myself more than I was consciously aware of.

This annoys me. Because I get impatient when someone tells me the same story more than once or repeats a joke they told me a view weeks ago. I'm ashamed to say I get irritated talking to me 83-year old mother and she repeats something she has told me several times (i.e. my birth was unplanned and she had really hoped for a girl). And I apologize if you've heard me harp on that before.

See what I mean.

Oh I suppose it doesn't really matter since very few people have probably read most of my posts and realize that I do have a tendency to repeat myself. But it annoys me.

Part of it is my journalism training. You write a story and repeat facts with the assumption that no one reading the story would know those facts regardless of how long the story has been in the headlines. It helps establish continuity. It's a very linear form of storytelling. It allows the reader to resestablish how you got to where you are today by recounting the facts (repetive or not) of what happened yesterday.

I'm rationalizing why I repeat myself. Sometimes I just repeat myself because I forget I've written the same thing before. Sometimes I repeat myself because it is comfortable and familar. Sometimes I just repeat myself.

Something about what I just wrote sounds vaguely familar to me.

Sometimes I just repeat myself.

Wait a second? Isn't this just karma?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find this to be true on my blog also. It worries me on many levels, but mostly...am I so shallow and one dimensional I have only 35 or 40 things to talk about over two years? Ugh. Enough to keep a woman writing fiction.

Karen said...

I haven't been blogging anywhere near as long as you and I KNOW I have already repeated myself. I'm wondering how long it will be before my daughters start rolling their eyes and saying "you told us that already mum...about 10 times".

Time said...

Kat,
Don't view it as repeating. View it as perpetual rewrites :)

Gypsy,

I've learned that you have to tell children things ten times before they finally hear them.