Changing Course

If you have taken a look at my bio page on this blog, you may recall that one of the reasons that I decided to start blogging was to serve as a diversion from writing fiction. That argument still holds true; however, as my job has become more demanding over the last several months, I have found myself with less and less time available to devote to my writing.

While I have struggled with finding the right work/life balance (or perhaps the right living/writing balance), I have been fortunate enough to have a friend to hold me accountable to my lofty goals of someday writing something other than technical reports and sales proposals. The good news is that he and I will try something new to keep the act of writing a regular part of our lives. With that in mid, I'd like to introduce Ben Russell as the newest author on the Bitter Grammar blog.

While I will still try to provide regular updates featuring observations about the humor of miscommunication, Ben and I have decided to use this blog as a platform for an experiment: publishing a collaborative short story. We will alternate writing sections of the story consecutively, and will be posting these sections to this blog. This represents a bit of a departure from my usual discourses on the humor of miscommunication, but I hope it will prove interesting nonetheless. You see, while we may decide to edit and revise this story offline (likely in a dark smoky room somewhere in the future), for the time being, we will do the rough drafts in plain slight of this blog's "many" readers (Hi Mom).
As we post our chapters to the blog, we will provide our comments and feedback online and invite you to do the same. The only rule we will have during this exercise is that Ben and I will not be allowed to undo the decisions of the other writer. Much like the art of theatrical improvisation, this story will be built on a foundation of "yes, and" storytelling. And, just like a non-smoking restaurant that does not provide ashtrays, there are no "buts" allowed."

I have no idea whether this will turn out well or not, but I'm sure of one thing. There are probably a lot of worse things to read than whatever Ben and I manage to come up with!

So, in the words of Monty Python: ...and now for something completely different!

Enjoy!
-Lee