As you know, I’m finishing up my B.A. in English this semester. It’s been a long, arduous process over the last four years, but the journey is almost complete. Over that time I’ve had plenty of papers to write and projects to complete (thankfully none were group projects or I’d probably have slit my wrists since those rarely ever go well). However, with only a few exceptions, most of these papers have been of the less-than-inspiring variety.

This semester I’m taking a copyediting course, which has been pretty interesting for a self-professed “Grammar Nazi.” Part of the class is also a glimpse into the publishing world as we were asked to design a newsletter using Quark Express. The project had to be two pages (front and back), could be on any topic we like (within reason, of course), and we could use dummy text or write our own copy. The point of the exercise is less about writing and editing and more about simply gaining some insight into how the publishing process works. It was a nice lead-in to our final chapter on proofreading.

Anyway, long story short, I’m pretty proud of my project, “Slime & Slander”, so I thought I’d post it here for posterity and to maybe give you a quick, entertaining read on your otherwise boring Monday workday. The first two pages of the PDF are the proposal, which we were supposed to write as a sort of business plan that we could supply to a prospective publishing company in the hopes they would fund the newsletter. Then the next 3 pages are the actual newsletter.

Enjoy!

Check out “Slime & Slander” here

Dear MySpace,

How are you? I’m fine.

Listen, I’m sure you’ve seen this coming – I hope so anyway. But, look, I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, but…I’m leaving. It’s not you, it’s me. No, really, you’re a great person, I just…I’m sorry.

No, yeah, definitely we had some good times in the past. Sure. But, well, the magic’s over. Come on, there’s no way you didn’t feel it, too. That empty space whenever I logged on and all I saw were spam friend requests from porn sites. Yeah, I…I just…I need some space. No, I know you have “space” in your name, but…but that’s not the kind of space I need right now.

Well…yes – there is someone else. Two someone else’s, actually. No, I’m sure you don’t know who they are.

Oh, you’ve heard of Facebook, huh?

I know, I know, but, well, I don’t get spam there. And, ya know, quite frankly, the site design doesn’t give me motion sickness because there aren’t obnoxious banner ads all over the goddamn place.

But I’m sure you don’t know…yes, I’m also seeing LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/roblammle). But, see, LinkedIn actually has a purpose. No, I don’t have that many connections just yet, but hopefully that will grow over time. Look, I’m taking it slow with LinkedIn, ok? I don’t want to rush into anything. The last thing I want is to get hurt again like I did with you…

There. I said it. I can’t be with you anymore, MySpace. You’re too immature; you’re too flashy; you don’t respect me when you let just anyone look at my profile or request to be my friend. I’ve had it. I’m sorry, but that’s my final decision.

So, look, I’m gonna come back by next week and close my account. That’ll give my friends here enough time to visit my website (www.spacemonkeyx.com), add me to Facebook (just search for me, I’m the only Rob Lammle there), or add a connection to me on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/roblammle). But after that, I’m through. Ok? I’m sorry, but this had to be done.

No, really, it’s not you. It’s just that I’m looking for something different now. What we had was great for a while, but…I’ve moved on and, well, you’re still you and I don’t want you to change just for me.

So, I’ll see you next week to say goodbye, ok?

Good.

Ok.

I hope we can still be friends. Just not on MySpace…