200 Words

Eric Hoffer wrote, "There is not an idea that cannot be expressed in 200 words."

I like distilling ideas and concepts down to their essences. I do this in my writing for A&E, the cost of which is based on page count, and my work in product marketing, where conciseness and clarity of a sales message is critical. 200 words is a good target. This gives the writer enough space to avoid being trite, but no time to be repetitive. Unfortunately, 200 words is not enough to make a good, comprehensive argument, with examples and preemptive responses to counter-arguments, but they are enough to get the point across.

Each week, I plan to have a 200-word essay on a topic. I plan to touch on anything and everything that comes to mind, from politics and religion, to gaming and current events. Though Hoffer's note states to ignore "a, of, the, and, etc." I will include those and just use the word counter tool on my word processor (OpenOffice, by the way), so I will actually be using fewer than 200 words. I hope it will be both fun and interesting and I may even open up comments.