On the ways in which a text can change as it passes through the reader:
What has begun to change since I moved into the orbit of Anya is not my opinions themselves so much as my opinion of my opinions. As I read through what mere hours before she translated from a record of my speaking voice into 14-point type, there are flickering moments when I can see these hard opinions of mine through her eyes – see how alien and antiquated they may seem to a thoroughly modern Millie, like the bones of some odd extinct creature, half bird, half reptile, on the point of turning into stone. Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year (137)
In a similar vein, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which blogging affects the writing process, given the instant (and democratic) feedback and, perhaps more importantly, the exposure it affords. I use the word “exposure” in two ways: first, in the sense that the web provides an immediate and accessible audience, something that can be difficult to achieve in print (not that it’s easier on the web, but it is more democratic); and, second, in that it pulls the curtain away from the writer’s desk, “exposing” a process that is usually kept behind closed doors and only referred to in abstract, romantic terms. More on this soon.
