Out of Time

Whoa, I just realized as I was typing it that the title of this post has a double meaning. Mind blowing.

So I'm on a deadline here, as we all are, and for my Out of Time assignment I am trying to write like Dickens. Not like the dickens, as my mom would maybe say to imply that I am trying to write quickly (where does that expression come from?), but actually, like, I'm trying to mimic the style of Charles Dickens. It seems suitable, but I really had no idea it was going to be this difficult to imitate someone else's style, and I really don't know if it's going to be obvious at all that this is what I'm doing. Maybe my reader is just going to think, 'wow, her paragraphs are suddenly really packed, and she's writing with so much detail when her style is usually so sparse. Interesting.' Maybe the connection to Dickens will never be found.

Then I started thinking about the ways that we rely on our readers and I got scared. My English 100 students can't even make a sentence. How would they notice something stylistic like this, when most of them probably never have and never will read Dickens? Who's my audience? Well, I suppose my audience is readers?

*sigh*

I have to stop blogging and go write now. Time is short. These assignments are hard.