A Harness on Creativity

When I sit at the computer to write my blogs, I can't help but notice the freedom I feel. I am free to write in any form, on any topic, use any language, add video/audio, change the colors, bold, underline, italicize, indent, bullet, number, cite improperly, use emoticons, and even word count is not stressed. But when I attempt to write on the page, I focus on what would be proper or correct. Doing anything that the MLA Handbook doesn't tell me I can do is unthinkable. But am I really limited by the MLA, or am I empowered?

The right side of my brain (and I don't mean the correct side) agrees with the prior. It's instinct to think that my creativity is oppressed by the MLA format, but that's not the case. When that right side of my brain thinks some more, it realizes that it has more creative opportunity following the guidelines in the MLA format. The MLA format forces me to creatively use language (and only written language) to convey my message, rather than emoticons and videos. Say I want to creatively describe how my morning was using traditional methods. I could write a passage that says:

This morning I opened my eyes for just a second, and then I closed them once again to savor the warmth of the blankets and the way the sun was kissing my face. Not wanting to spoil myself, I jumped out of bed and gazed out the window. What a beautiful day it was! How lucky I am to be alive!

But if it was on a blog I might just write:

I had a lovely morning. :-)

Colorful language (and I mean language that is in different colors), videos, emoticons, and all the other distractions are just that: distractions. So far I've misused parentheses, the colon, used a rhetorical question, ended sentences with prepositions, and the only proofreading I will do will be the spell check. This is all because of the casual, simplistic nature of blogs. It seems to be the trend that people write better on blogs than in other mediums, but it seems to be the opposite for me. I don't handle freedom well. Give me rules and let me bend them. Don't take away the rules.