One commenter has criticized my more-than-opccsional exclamatory style on this blog. Which helped me thingk it through. I think blogging is a naturally exclamatory form, meant to express the excitement of the moment (and I’ve always been an excitable boy). I get the most pleasure out of posts that feel like I’m calling up a friend and saying “Did you see THAT?!” Or if not the most pleasure, a pleasure that’s specific to blogging.
I’ve done what I consider thoughtful essays on this blog. But I’ve done what I thought were thoughtful essays in periodicals and in books. The blog form however,–or one form of the blog form, I know there are many varieties on the spectrum–seems to me particularly suited, designed to express the emotion of the moment and not read as if carved in stone. It’s riskier that way, but I think people in general know it’s meant to represent an instant response, often at least. They can tell when it is. And the exclamations help underline that. They do!
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