Recent Blog Entries
This should be obvious: don’t lie
Written by Tyme White on September 28, 2006
Did you just roll your eyes? Before you click a way, writers/bloggers/companies subtly do it all the time. Have you ever said “We take great pride” when there is only one person behind the site? Lie…but that’s so commonly done most people let that slide. What I’m talking about is much more devious: the loophole lie.
Come on, you know what I mean. “Usually we do…”, “generally, we do not”, or “on occasion we will”. When I read this I think one thing:
Make up your mind and stick to it. Of course that would require a plan, which requires a bit of management, which for some reason writers do not think they need, but that’s another entry for another day.
Personal bloggers are thinking “Ha, she’s not talking about me!”. Ha! Wrong. You people do it too.
“I usually don’t take men/women home on the first date, but….”
“On occasion I will go over the speed limit and wouldn’t you know it the one time I did it, I got a ticket!”
I made these up so I apologize if someone blogged about something like this recently but again, if you did it, you do it. What are you ashamed of?
Writers, sometimes unconsciously, try to sugar coat when they step into gray areas. There’s just one problem: once something is online, it’s out there. White, black or gray most times sugar coating doesn’t work.
Why am I bringing this up? Will your site be rejected because you do this? Honestly, I’m probably the only one that would spend that much time on a site and I’m not your mother. I bring this up because joining 9rules means more exposure. More people reading your words. The things you used to get away might not work any more. And it’s quite possible you’ll be called out on your loophole lie.
If you did it once, and you might do it again, you do it. Stop sugarcoating it. Take responsibility for what you, um, are doing and if you’re ashamed of it, why continue to do it? Stop doing it.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Amen, Tyme! I am afraid that I am guilty of this so from now on, I will give my writing a second look for this.
September 28th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Great write up.
September 28th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
I’ll second Kyle’s “Amen, Tyme!,” though I know I’m quite guilty of this particular trespass. I’ll be more careful about it in the future!
September 28th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
I don’t think I lie in my writing, but the management is a good idea. I’m going to try to pre-write my entries, just like in school
. It might help, so why not?
September 28th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
and if a primary purpose of your blog is to make things up?
September 28th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
On a side note, because of the nature of my site, I take a lot of outside submissions. Most of the writing is subjective. However, I have learned to fact check and read the submissions thoroughly. Although rare, I am always amazed by plagiarism.
What is more amazing than the attempt is the way it is done. Poorly written lead with loads of grammatical errors and missing words followed by an eloquent paragraph by Mark Twain. I suppose they thought they would just slip in a little bit of Huckleberry Finn and no one would notice. While it is usually not Twain, obvious plagiarism is just as embarrassing and damaging to the site that is not careful with its postings.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
I thought I would bring this up now because we did have instances where sites were accepted, real life and online life hit like two freight trains and they decided to leave 9rules. It’s better to take a good look at your site, clean it up (perhaps the caches will be gone by 10/25) now than possibly getting in and having headaches.
panoptican – does the audience know it’s made up?
September 28th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Have we 9Rulers been bad? I just read the last few posts here and feel instantly guilty!
It’s a natural reaction to sugarcoat your problems, however I must say the raw truth is far more interesting to read.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
I used to commit this mistake until recently a fellow reader suggest me not to do so.
I run a Tech Blog… So what’s wrong ?? Its still a personal Tech Blog lol !! I’m the only guy behind it…
September 29th, 2006 at 12:38 am
To the extent that a conversation with a stoplight would clearly be fiction. Certainly though this discussion has caused me to take into consideration making it a bit more explicit that the my creative writing process is inclined toward invented facts.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:07 am
Tyme,
Thank you for your wonderful insight on this blog. I am not sure if I plan to submit or not, but your advice to bloggers surely will help be blog better!
September 29th, 2006 at 10:17 am
I have a tricky situation here – fadtastic is a multiple author blog and I always say “we’ve just launched xxxxxx” but the actual admin is just me! It’s a dilemma.
September 29th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I consistently drive over the speed limit; usually at least 30% over when on the freeway. Though I do it safely and haven’t had a single speed-related incident on my driving record ever, nor any other incident for over six years.
I don’t have the keen memory it takes to maintain a carefully constructed web of lies, so the truth seems to work out better.
But anyway, yeah, lying is bad.
October 1st, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Finish Ahead: Don’t lie about your speeding!…
Tyme White hits on how easily the corporate culture of “loophole lies” slips into our personal lives.What I find even more surprising is our tolerance for it.
Someone will say something that you know is utterly false, and for practical reas…