[budi rahardjo, 27 april 2001 and then updated 4 dec 2001, 10 april 2002]
I admire those writers who could continuously write and produce good quality articles and books. How do they do it? I also admire the guts of news media companies who publish newspapers, magazines. Do they think they can have good articles everyday? Or do they expect that the readers will read anything they can find? I guess they do.
Anyway. Many people, newspapers, magazines, portals asked me to write articles for them. I guess it's not that I am good in writing articles, they are just desperate! They thought they can steadily produce good articles. Reality sinks in. Now, they just want articles. Quality is number 73.
Now what? Should I accept their offer and write cr*p? or should I decline and write good articles only? What would you do? I don't want to write cr*p, or repeated things, or things that are so cliche. I mean, the readers are smart. Give them the credit, please. I am so unimpressed with many news media who keep on repeating same topics. On and on and on, like a broken record.
When I was in high school, I wrote articles and even poems! Yikes. Did I say poem? You're right. Yikes sounds alright. (I did wrote some songs too.) My style used to be (and still is) direct and no BS. Just look at the title of this note. When I described something, I just described it without repeating or elaborating from different angles. Just blurt it out and that's that. The flow becomes fast. I suppose, unless I change my writing style, I wouldn't be able to write novels. Which I won't. [Could you suggest a goof, oops I mean good, book or reference?]
Most of the time I throw away my works (be that articles, book drafts, and others) after they are created. I am not comfortable with the quality of the results. Do other writers feel the same? I was told that James Joyce continuously changing his major works Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. (I haven't read them since it is difficult from where I live to get those books.) He even went as far as twenty years for making corrections on Finnegans Wake. I guess, I am not that bad. I still throw my articles away though.
So far I only committ to those who understand that I cannot write articles quickly (or even regularly). I was a writer for for M-Web portal, in its "komputer" section/hub. It is difficult to find topics that are consistent with the column I am supposed to write. I mean, who would publish this type of articles? Perhaps it will stay in my homepage. So , at the end, this article stays where it belongs. In my personal homepage. Ehm, thanks for reading this cr*p.