On the other hand, a really specific (short) word limit can force one to be more creative and improve the text. I love the Blaise Pascal quote: “Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”
In English: “This letter is very long because I did not have time to make it short.”
In other words, brevity is not only the soul of wit, it takes more time to achieve, sometimes, than much longer pieces of writing.
This post notwithstanding.
Excellent point! I am often wordier than I need to be, so if I have time, I try to pare down my words in a post. I struggled with Twitter, and pretty much gave up on it. Probably because it takes me longer to keep myself to 140 characters than to write, for example, a rambling comment on a blog post.
Great advice, Mark. Given a big vast canvas, my first reaction is often paralysis; there are far too many choices. But give me boundaries to chafe against, and I’ll start creating like mad. 🙂