I have been writing for myself almost as long as I have been able to write. Sometimes I would let other people read what I wrote, but that’s not why I wrote. I wrote, and still write, because I don’t talk.
Let me clarify a bit. I’ll use an example. I have basenjis. Basenjis are little African hunting dogs that don’t bark. Sometimes I’ve told people that and they get this pained look on their faces, like, “oh, those poor dogs. Why can’t they bark?” Sometimes they even ask me “Why can’t they bark?” because they don’t listen. (I’m still talking about the people here.) I never say “can’t bark.” “Don’t bark” is entirely different from “can’t bark.” I think basenjis just have a high “bark threshold.” They have to be extremely motivated to vocalize in a way that could be described as a bark. My older basenjis bark like cocker spaniels when they’re waiting for me to put their food bowls on the floor.
I’m the same way. I’m perfectly capable of running my mouth non-stop until my voice is gone. I’m just very rarely motivated to do so. As a result, a lot of what I have to say stays unsaid. Some of it joins other things I haven’t said in my head, and they all have a great party. Then I write stuff down.
So much of what I was writing down in my youth has been lost because the technology I was using at the time — pen and paper — was prone to getting torn up or tossed out in the various purges I went through while packing up and moving around. Then there was the “new” technology — called a Commodore 64, and things called floppy disks that you can’t put in a current disk drive of any description.
So I’m going to try writing in cyberspace — try letting the party animals in my head come out and play a bit. From what I’ve seen of blogs and websites lately, my thoughts and I should feel right at home.
