scijessreads

The internet is littered with deleted, forgotten, and abandoned blogs that I have started and stopped since blogging became a thing. Honestly, this habit of mine predates the internet and started way back with my first journal (a pink one that was covered in puffy, glittery plastic and had a snap closure). I am great at beginning things, less adept with the follow through. 

I find it funny, that me, a person often lost in her head and able to spin elaborate fantasies in my mind, is not all that great at getting them down on paper. I like to do the imagining, not so much the harder work of recording these mental images in a form that can be rememberd and revisited. I mean, many of my late night mental wanderings tend toward the spicy romance/smut end of things these days (actually, for a while). The probably means something, but I’m not going to get into that here. There’s plenty of time to untangle that mess of my psyche in more detail.

Like many things, I become enamored with an idea and have to share it with something. Since I am decidedly not great at sharing with other people (go only-child syndrome and introversion), the end result is either “sharing” with a journal, or sharing on the internet. Which at first glance seems very much not what an introvert would do. But on the internet, I can be anonymous. I don’t have to put my real self out there with my words. I can hide behind a screen while still feeling like I am getting my words out there. No matter how inane or helpful those words may be, they end up outside of my head and at least somewhat processed through the filter of the computer screen.

There are days when I feel like I should have been an English major rather than follow the path to Biology. I love editing. I love the written word, learning about where words come from, I kick my feet and giggle at a good turn of phrase. Double entendre is always entertaining (especially in mixed company where it completely passes over those that don’t have a mind ¾ of the way into the gutter). Words can mean anything and everything, and what is especially unique is that the same word or phrase, spoken in a different tone or used in a different language, can have vastly different meanings between groups of people. 

I also think that I am just better at expressing myself with the written word. I like to take my time, think through what I am saying, and not have anything be misconstrued by my tone of voice or misremembered after the fact. Writing things down is as close to permanent record as you can get. And you can take the time to make word choices and format choices and parse every detail to make sure that you say what it is you want to say. Or obfuscate what you want to obfuscate. I mean, a good teacher knows the difference between writing “may” and “will” in a syllabus. You can write in and out of ambiguity, for both yourself and the reader, however you want. It’s actually kind of a heady power, if you think about it. How many nations have gone to war over words? 

Back to the original point in all of this, because I swear there was one. My method of writing has been to go in full speed ahead, write consistently for a week or a month or a couple months, and then just… let it die out. Sometimes due to forgetting the blog/journal/whatever was even there. Sometimes due to me just wiping everything clean and deleting the entire journal. I started with the puffy plastic covered journal, graduated to LiveJournal (oh, those were the days), dabbled in Blogger, WordPress (although I do have a WordPress  blog now that’s been going consistently for around 6 months, which is some kind of record for me), and I’m pretty sure there was a Tumblr moment in there as well. The topics have run the gamut from wanting to be a foodie, doing a daily diary, writing about science, and writing about everything. Right now, the current WordPress blog is mostly about books, with some other stuff thrown in for variety. 

Even though not all of the words stick, I think the act of getting them down helps me. It helps me clear my head and basically “brain dump” onto the page to let me sift though my thoughts and take a closer look at them to decide if they are worth pursing further, or just need to be discarded and tossed to the side. Not every thought, jus like not every word, needs it’s moment in the sun. And I don’t see this habit ending anytime soon. Like here, this is an avenue to get my jumbled ideas out of my head and visible to at least me. Whether or not it gets shared with anyone else isn’t the point. The point is to do it, to engage in the activity of writing and playing with words and putting them in different orders to see if there is any meaning there worth mining further, or if they are meant to simply fall out of my body and drift away for someone else to pick up and use.