Since I do a goodly amount of blathering on about words and what they mean, I was very very (did I mention very?) interested to learn of a new blog from Chris Jones (one of my favorite writers) that he describes as being "about writing and words."
On the Blogger network (ok, since I've now seen this blog and the one from Joe Posnanski on blogger, I'll remain on and not move to TypePad), Son of a Bold Venture features a hodgepodge of writing from Jones... with almost if not all of the posts thus far on the subject of Writing.
His first post provides both some short back story around becoming a writer (which frankly, made me want to hear the long back story) and impetus behind the blog. With the second post a day later being on another of my favorite writers, the aforementioned Joe Posnanski, I was sold as a reader. Well, I would have been into it anyways, but you get the point.
I posted a comment to this second blog entry with a portion of it being the following:
Joe Posnanski for me hits on multiple elements of good writing. It's thorough, conveys a message and is emotional... but without dropping into the realm of sentimental just for the sake of sentiment (if that makes sense as an accolade).
Now, I'm not going to follow the traditional path that my blog has taken of reposting or linking to good writing and saying why it's good since that would be, you know... My commenting on My writing and saying why I like it. What I will do though, is say that I love this idea of what makes good writing good.
Me thinks it's especially a trick to come up with good writing of the more heartfelt variety (which I tend to lean towards rather than away from) because if not done well, it just becomes ooshy-gushy. The writers I most enjoy and seek out stuff from (Posnanski, Jones, S.L. Price, David Von Drehle, Austin Murphy when he's not doing straight game reporting) all seem to accomplish this feat of solid and thorough writing that also has heart.
So, back to the point (and title) of this post... a blog on writing by a guy who writes in a fashion that I admire, it's Word Gold to me.
