unfinished and imperfect but still fine

I wrote this entry a while ago, but never finished it. I'm going leave it as is without finishing it even though it goes completely against the point I'm trying to make!

Back in October 2010...
I've been following a certain blog because of my obsession with a certain drama. I can usually watch the newest episode of a Korean drama on Chinese websites so I don't really need to read recaps, but I love reading them just the same. Especially with this particular drama, it helps extend the giddiness and at the same time relieve the obsessiveness I feel about it. The best part is I get to relive the action because the best recaps are those that can translate into words those emotions and reactions you feel as you're watching. Javabeans and her trusty team at Dramabeans are the best example of how to write a recap. This is hard work, people! I know because I've tried it out myself. It takes a lot of time. As another blogger noted (okay so I've been obsessively following a number of blogs to feed my addiction in between episodes), it can take hours to complete a roughly one-hour episode. And think about it. While you're sitting, enjoying, even relaxing watching a TV show, you're not thinking about writing anything down, right? Aside from taking down the happenings within an episode, one might even consider editing the writing. Also not a short, small task. Moreover, for a good recap, these two steps are insufficient if you don't have an interesting writing style. The day Javabeans decides managing and writing for her blog is taking too much of her time will be a very sad day for me. Now I'm not saying that the non-Dramabeans recaps I read are not good. Far from it. It's just that Dramabeans makes it seem so easy while at the same time being so well-done.

So I was pretty surprised to read a recent entry where the blog author felt compelled to post an explanation about her writing. I haven't read all the comments so I'm not entirely sure what spurred her to write this entry,  but I can see it was necessary given the craziness and obsessiveness surrounding the drama (er...fighting over which of the Jalgeum 4 is the hottest is apparently very serious business and has been known to veer towards violence!), the drama licensing (viikii had to stop subbing while licensing was being worked out; not sure if this has been resolved yet), and fans clamoring to find out what's happening (I am case in point even though I can access the episodes pretty quickly in Chinese!).

Anyway, I just wanted to take some time to highlight a point she made that I thought was interesting--and that is the imperfection of her writing. Having worked (briefly) in publishing in the past, I know that finding errors even after rounds and rounds of editing is incredibly frustrating. Bloggers don't have the luxury of dozens of rounds of editing unless they're also professional writers, but I think that's part of the charm of blogging. It's of the moment, often a quick snapshot of a particle of time, much in the way that Impressionists tried to make their paintings. Impressionist paintings can hardly be described as perfect but that makes them no less complete. The immediacy with which the images are captured is what gives the paintings character.