There is something intimidating about blank space. I think that’s why the existing templates for blogs don’t provide distinct visual separation between entries. It’s usually a subtle thing, a line, blank space, but nothing like the abrupt space of a canvas.
I think that the implied cohesiveness of words, generated into a space that is not a blank, helps most beginning writers feel more comfortable adding words to their blog space. The first stroke is always the hardest. It’s as if you’ve violated the blankness, and you feel the pressure to make what you put there worthwhile. But with the support of a few lines written before, the pressure is mitigated. Once you start adding words to the screen, it’s easier to continue.
Because blogs are always works in progress, the writer feels more at ease. A blog is never really finished. Like a painting, blogging only pauses in interesting places.
The particles of a blog are not seamless. Each entry is a line in a poem, read in reverse, and situated by relation to the disappearing text that scrolls off underneath. Having written in the space before, adding to it becomes easier. Each new entry becomes a mutation, upsetting the stasis of the ethos conveyed before. A violation of stasis, but seldom of emptiness.
I find blank space to be an invitation, myself; not intimidating at all. When I first started playing with what is now the basic look of textartisan.com (including CavLec), I decided I *wanted* lots of whitespace and few obvious boundaries. I prefer my page sailing off into the ether, so to speak, than being rigidly fixed and divided up.
(Pages that look as though they’re a piece of paper thumbtacked to the exact center of the screen don’t do much for me. De gustibus non disputandum, however.)
Though I have been considering creating subtle boxes for individual entries so that mine can easily be distinguished from my husband’s.
Yes, but I’d expect that of a text artisan. I was speaking in general terms, regarding the not insignificant number of folks who have entered into blogging as perhaps a formative writing experience.
I did the “sailing off into the ether” (or perhaps an ocean) thing in my previous incarnation of this blog. It was a useful experience. In this version, I chose instead to privilege the particularness of each each post. Once again, it’s just an experiment.
My dear sir, I intended no criticism of your lovely design! Just observing why mine differs.