Physician, Heal Thyself

BLOG: Godyears
AUTHOR: Pythoroshan. Indian. Male. Thirty-ish. Physician. Recently passed his examinations. A bit of a movie and food junkie.

Roshan, I sincerely thought I was going to hate your ass.

I count nineteen reasons why I gasped audibly when I first viewed your blog. That’s how many little useless gadgets and doo-dads are scattered around the perimeter. Although none are particularly intrusive – they don’t prevent the reading of the writing or slow the page loading or anything – their prominent display made me wonder and worry about what sorts of priorities you place on style versus substance.

And now, I am going to peel the curtain back a little on my process for reviewing a blog. I start with a brief scan of the two or three most recent posts. Then I usually look for an About Me page, if it exists, to get a sense of what the bloggers goal in blogging is. (I couldn’t find one here.) Then I survey the volume based on the archives. I then sample a random post or three from various epochs of the archives. And then I decide where to start my review from.

In this case, based on my initial assessment, I couldn’t go more than a year back. Although you’ve been writing for significantly longer than that, I felt that the earliest stuff was not truly indicative of the direction you are currently going in. And that wasn’t fair to you or me. Mostly me.

What I learned along the way:

• You are a bit of an idealist.
• You like to write movie reviews. (I don't agree with them, but that's okay.)
• You hold no truck with caste-based or religious divisions. You see bullshit and call it for the bullshit it is.
• You are worse than a hopeless romantic – you are a hopeful one. Ugh.
• You like to eat. (Little references interspersed throughout -- not a single link to use as an example.)
• You write fiction.

And having read what I did, I have to say, I like you. You’re the kind of guy I’d want to hang out with – fun loving, yet can get down to business when that’s the appropriate response. Funny and self deprecating, and yet not a gloomy gus who brings everyone down.

But, for the most part, I found your writing a tad bit turgid and clumsy. Too many posts were a bit of a chore to get through. I was down with what you were trying to say, but you just took too many words to get there. I suspect that you write the way you speak. A lot of people do. I just think that in a lot of these cases, less may very well be more.

As for the fiction, I liked what you wrote, but didn’t necessarily love it. I could probably provide specific feedback on your Guardian Angel piece, for example, with an eye toward tightening it up, making it better, etc. I’m not sure if that sort of constructive criticism is welcomed, so I will hold off.

What to do to improve: Try to write less densefully. Yeah, that’s not a word. I just made it up. But it captures the essence of what I mean. Sometimes this means simply rewording things. Sometimes it means you need to get out the scissors and excise an extraneous concept or two. And sometimes you can get a tad preachy in a way that I think undermines your intentions. Try to avoid that.

Your rating. One star.



Some artful editing and a bit more care in crafting your fiction will elevate this higher. you've got potential, my son.