You are what you eat, and maybe that's why I am a dick
The other day I received a comment on the post We are indeed what we eat, and what we eat remakes the world published on my blog Comics Legends and Lore. The comment was "Is that why you're a dick? Sorry, couldn't resist." One thing I have learned in my short career as a blogger is that thick skin and patience are necessary tools of the trade. Comments are the voice of my audience.
Sometimes when you write, it's easy to forget that you are actually writing to someone. In the old days, when we wrote letters with pen and paper, the decision to cross out mistakes or start all over depended upon who we were writing to. The letter to Mom, for example, took a lot of revisions! Whether you've thought about it consciously or not, you always write to an audience. Sometimes your audience is a very generalized group of readers. Sometimes you know the individuals who compose the audience, and sometimes you write for yourself. Keeping your audience in mind while you write can help you make good decisions about what material to include, in what order to organize your ideas, and how best to support your argument.
To illustrate the impact of audience, imagine you're writing a letter to your parents to tell them about the woman you plan to marry. Or better yet, you are telling them about your same sex partner! What details and stories might you include? What might you leave out? Is this the first time they are hearing about the situation? Now imagine that you're writing on the same topic but your audience is your best friend. Unless you have extremely cool parents, it's likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms of content, structure, and even tone.
When we talk to someone face-to-face, we know just who we are talking to. We automatically adjust our speech to be sure we are communicating our message. we change what we say because we know our audience.
I can possibly make the distinction between my audience as a target group (i.e., the group of people who may be attracted to my subject matter or my point-of-view) and my audience as readers (actual people who read my text, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word.)
My audience is the group of people who share certain subject interests, social or political beliefs, or certain demographic features. Once you know something about your target audience, you have some idea about their expectations of the subject, format, and style of writing.
My, "readers," however, are, in addition, thinking about how I process my text. In addition to being interested in my ideas, these actual readers must wade through my words and sentences. Writers need to learn to anticipate the needs of their readers as well as the interests of their audiences.
So, my dear audience and gentle readers (and if you are still here you must be a reader) am I a dick? A few weeks ago my niece probably thought so. During a long bicycle ride, after talking about everything under the sun, she blurted out: "You never like anything I do!". She sped up and rode off into the sunset. Well, not really the sunset as it was mid day, and she only rode up in front by 500 yards. But the conversation had died in agony. Later a dear friend explained that my young niece was not looking for honesty or constructive criticism. She would have been perfectly content with monosyllabic responses like ah ha, yep and a periodic nodding of the head. She was offering up a real time blog of her activities of the last few weeks, and the comment button had been disabled!
The comment button is always enabled on Epicurean Health and all my blogs. Please help me better serve my audience and my readers. I will respond, unless I think, as in this case, a quick response may be counterproductive. How many people have lost out on a promotions or even lost their jobs because of hasty responses to inter-office emails?
You may also enjoy reading: If we are to find our readers, we must be gentle with them.
Also, may I recommend for your enjoyment: The puzzle that is me
Whether they are made of pork, as is most often the case, or of beef, veal, buck, goat, chamois, venison, sheep, wild boar, or horse, cured meats (salumi in Italian) were born of a need to conserve meat for months after the slaughter of the animal. Salting, smoking, and air-drying are the three processes by which fresh meat is transformed into a long-keeping staple.
While all meats are salted, some are smoked, and others are simply air-dried. Italians have been making an amazing array of cured meats for thousands of years using both noble and humble parts of the animals they raise. The ancient Romans prized the spicy pork sausages crafted in the southern region of Basilicata (called Lucania then, and giving rise to sausages named Lucaniche still eaten today). And, fond of intensely tasty foods, they smoked or salted whole pig thighs, yielding savory Prosciutti not unlike those still made in mountain villages across Italy.
Two thousand years later, pork remains Italy's favorite meat for curing. Pigs are especially prevalent in areas where there is a notable cheesemaking tradition: after all, wherever there is cheese, there is excess whey, which, combined with bran and corn, becomes perfect feed for pigs.
Stumble It!
website: Time-less-image
web blog: Comics Legends and Lore
web blog: Time Less Images
web store: Time-Less-Image Ebay Store
Technorati Tags: comments
Blogs are ranked in various ways, and one of the more significant ones (besides linking or subscribing) happens via Technorati. In brief, Technorati tracks millions of blogs and lets users search them, tag them, and rank them. If you own a blog, or if you read them, I recommend signing up with Technorati (it's free and takes a couple minutes). And if you enjoy this blog, I encourage you, please, to "favorite" it. 
