I Live, I Learn

Hello again, family and friends!

Last 'extended' weekend (9 - 13 July), I celebrated the 30th anniversary of (barely) graduating from high school, my 48th birthday, and my grandson's 2nd birthday. As one can imagine, it was a whirlwind of activity, emotions, and memories...and I'm still trying to assimilate it all and recover. One very important thing that happened was that I had the opportunity to sit down with one of my classmates from the Class of '79 and discuss a number of things with her. One of the topics we discussed was blogging.

Justine is one of the people whom I admire. She's a successful investment banker, entrepreneur, wife, mother, mentor, and experienced blogger. I don't think I'm speaking in hyperbole when I say I am truly blessed and honored to count Justine among my friends and that I put great store in any advice or input she offers. During our conversation last weekend, she provided me with great input about this blog. She told me that, while she liked my topics and the way I expressed my opinions, I needed to work on making the posts shorter...only 300 - 400 words each. Until this point, I had been treating the posts to this blog as 'human interest' articles one might find in a newspaper. When I first started teaching myself journalism, I learned that the average length for an article of this nature is 1000 - 1500 words...and that is the standard I had used for my posts. Apparently, our post-MTV soundbite-driven culture no longer has the attention span for articles of this length.

Starting immediately, I will be implementing Justine's suggestion. Over the next couple of weeks, you will be seeing posts from me on topics ranging from our recent 30-year Reunion to the American Healthcare system to racism in the U.S. For those topics that can't be covered in the print version of a 'soundbite,' I will serialize them...breaking those articles into multiple posts, each post not exceeding 400 words in length.

So, my friends, I will ask you to stay tuned and sign out for now. After all, this post (with signature and copyright) is 374 words long. Until next time...

Best regards,
Jim


© 2009 James P. Rice