Pondering

[caitri]

So I'm reading Thomas Traherne today; specifically the selections from Centuries of Meditations. The notes in the back mention that the Centuries were written in a notebook that was a gift from his friend Susannah Hopton; apparently after finishing his writing Traherne returned it to her for her to write her responses. The editor mentions that Susannah is thus the "you" in his text, and that what in manuscript becomes an intimate sharing of thoughts and writing becomes a rhetorical device in print.
So of course this makes me think of how we share writing today: Google Documents with Comments, or MS Word with Comments and Track Changes. Visually very different. In my Google docs work pane I can see my list of documents, who I have shared them with, and whether someone has commented or edited recently. Is this intimate? Is this shared text?

Comments

[elanya.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I could classify comments and tracked changes the same way, because they can be deleted by whoever 'owns' the document. t is a kind of share process, and depending on what yo are sharing and what you're getting in return it can be intimate, but it isn't necessarily.

OTOH, the Gdrive function that lets you add other people who can actively work on the document - adding and altering it, without a record of the changes, and where authorship is essentially shared - I would count that, for sure!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

It is, or it can be. I adore audiencing because of that intimacy and sharing. Would say more, but redheads.