Writing

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I enjoy writing, although I write primarily as a way of simple communication [see communication], or at school [see school] -- although I can enjoy poetry [see artistic], I don't write much myself; sometimes I walk around with pieces and parts of what I might be able to turn into a poem, but I never really get it on paper and finalize it... perhaps I'm a bit too shy, or perhaps a bit too afraid, afraid of what others might think? There are few things that are as personal as a poem.

At school (and really also later in life), writing also becomes a technical merit. I'm normally quite good at writing `good' and understandable language; I usually find myself `picking up' the natural tone of a language quite well, which again leads to the power of expression, both in `dull' texts (like some argumentation or a technical document), and in language that comes more `alive' (like in poems, except that like I said, I don't write those ;-) ).

Apart from that, I also write code [see programming], and of course, home pages. :-D (By the way, I usually write plain text, HTML [see the technical stuff...] or LaTeX [see LaTeX], if that's interesting to you ;-) ) Another interesting medium where I write quite a lot, is IRC [see Internet Relay Chat], and of course, we have e-mail and news. Writing really is the main form of communicating [see communication] today, and I really like that. In a written document, you can evaluate closely what you'd like to say and really take your time -- in a telephone call or face-to-face, that's much harder (but on the other hand, you get a whole other range of ways to express yourself that way, so all three (or both, if you want) ways have their advantages).

I write a bit conservatively and usually correct, and I tend to be a bit picky on others' language as well (if you're on IRC [see Internet Relay Chat], you might note that ;-) ). I even spell check my pages (you would be surprised if you knew how few actually do that) -- it's a pity there is no free (as in `with source code, available for Linux [see Linux]' in my case) well-working grammar checker available (at least, none that I know of)... The reason is quite simple: clarity. A well-written text is much easier to comprehend than a poorly written one; communication goes smoother, and the reader can concentrate on the substance of the text, rather than have to spend time on how the text is written... and the text really is for the reader, isn't it? (Now, I can write complicated and weird if I want to -- sometimes I write like 8-10 parenthesizes inside each other, 15 line sentences or sentences with semi-exclamation-marks -- it's a pity most teachers [see school] don't appreciate such things ;-) )